manga-summaries

[manga-summaries]

Poison Ivy (2022) trade 5 (issues #25-30) summary

Ivy is focusing on rebuilding. Literally the swamp that was burned in her fight with Woodrue but also figuratively. She recruits the rest of the gang to help her with clean up after the fight with Woodrue

Janet goes into Gotham proper, and narrowly misses a ecoterrorist bomb the head offices of corporations that drive climate change. The ecoterrorist had vision of Ivy and was convinced she was sending him messages through plants, and he did this in her name. He's killed by the bombing.

Janet narrowly misses another ecoterrorist bombing when she later goes to the bougie grocery store. There is a new ecoterrorist cell calling itself the Order of the Green Knight. A shrine is left outside of Janet's door, probably by them

Meanwhile, Pam investigates the old timey city that's appeared suddenly in the swap. She concludes this was a suburb foolishly built on land that eventually got reclaimed by the seamp, and somehow her reviving the swap also revived it. As she explores, messages are being left around the town.

While sharing this discovery with Janet on the phone, Janet shares the current news broadcast: the Order of the Green Knigh claim Poison Ivy is their leader, their Green Knight

Back in the city, Batman once again confronts Ivy but after some brief scuffling she convinces him she has nothing to do with it, and he lets her off so she can get to the bottom of it and try to deescalate the situation. It's practically the exact same confrontation from the last time they meet

Pam and Janet move into the resurrected swamp ghost town because the Order knows where they live and they don't want to endanger and of their friends over it. Pam goes back into the city to investigate, and Janet panics about being alone in a freaky resurrected swamp ghost town, so she calls Killer Croc for company. He seems to be touched that she is more afraid of the ghost town than she is of him. He comes over, they do some exploring together, see some cryptic messages in chalk, and she kisses him.

Back to Pam, she passes one of the would-be bombers and grabs him. He practically worships as a messiah, and he knows about her fight with Woodrue. Pan out to a crowd of ecoterrorists. They all know about her.

She learns there's a "First Disciple" who is spreading worship of Ivy. She's in Seattle.

Ivy goes back to the swamp city to meet her friends. Janet and Croc fucked, but they're trying to hide it and they're very bad at that. Everyone gets distracted by a loud noise outside: it's whatever creature or ghost has been showing up. Ivy chases it but it runs. She decides it's probably not a threat then, and she goes for a walk to clear her head

... and then gets lost in magic fog. Except it's not magic because she totally doesn't believe in magic certainly there's a rational explanation for it. For the magic for and the giant eldritch creature in the distance. Oh dear.

A smaller eldritch creature appears at her side and says the big guy is Xylon, a shepherd of the Grey who was asleep for 10 million years before Ivy woke it. The small guy also introduces herself as Bog Venus, an emissary of the Parliament of Trees/the Green. The Green and the Grey had a truce, but the balance is now out of wake because of Ivy. The emissary insists Ivy needs to fix this and that she's on thin ice. But also that there are many in her corner, like the swamp that she resurrected.

Pam wonders out of the fog and finds she's in Seattle? Woah thanks swamp magic! She goes stealth and finds a climate protest and tries to use it to find info about the First Disciple. Police raid it, she sides with the protesters over the police, and convince them to take her to the person.

The person is Bella Garten. Ivy's fight with Woodrue rang out across the Green and anyone sensitive to it saw it as a dream or vision. Bella then took advantage of this to prop Ivy up as a messiah figure to people who needed one so they can have an army and manpower to bring about a green revolution.

Pam refuses. She hates people deciding what she will be. First she kisses Bella, but when that doesn't convince her to stop, she then snaps and almost kills her.

She stops at the last moment. They refuse to agree or work together, and Bella siccs her plant-dogs onto Pam, who refuses to fight them. She runs back into the woods

... and the mysterious fog is back. So is Xylon. It talks to Ivy via a mycelium network and explains that she is literally the only person who can hear it. It shows her visions of the Earth's history:

Once upon a time, the Grey and the Green where the only life forces on Earth, and they were at war. Animals and humans came along, and the Green tried to domesticate them. But turns out humans domesticated it. The Grey needs Ivy to be their emissary to both the Green and humans to get all three to be in a truce

She wonders back out of the fog, right into Janet's arms back at the swamp town

What has Janet been up to? Fucking Croc again (hell yeah good for you girl) going to the town's library to see everyone just up and left one day in 1958, and then getting accosted by Bog Venus. The Green does not trust Ivy to be on their side against the Grey, and they try to recruit Janet to be their spy against Ivy. Bog Venus gives her an acorn to use as a tapping device. Janet insists she would never betray Pam, but also acknowledges that she is an afterthought for Pam, not a priority, and that hurts

She then crashes right into Pam's arms

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Poison Ivy (2022) trade 4 (issues #19-24) summary

Pamela vomits up/gives birth to Woodrue. She's on death's door and has a flashback explaining her back story:

She was a bright student who moved to Seattle for undergrad where she met Woodrue. He fast tracks her to working alongside his graduate students, and takes advantage of Pam to further his work on bridging the gap between plants and animals. Pam is the only one he brings fully on board with his work, including a secret lab he'd set up in a storage container, and he uses this to isolate her. He also starts sleeping with her

Eventually Bella Garten joins the crew of grad students. Woodrue lets her fully in on his experiements too, try to deepen control over both of them by pitting the two against each other. It works and the two are rivals, but Pam and Bella also have sex about it and start looking out for each other against Woodrue.

Bella's also been doing her own experiments on the side making a chimpanzee plant monster. When Woodrue learns of this (and that he's losing control of the two women), he demands that one of them take his serum to show true results. Pam jumps at the chance to show Bella up.

Woodrue injects her with his serum. She seemingly dies, and Woodrue runs- fearing judicial consequences- while Bella gets Pam to a hospital.

Pamela is reborn both plant and human. She's connected to the Green, and she constantly hears it screaming. She breaks out of the hospital to follow the screaming to Gotham.

She tries some entry level terrorism, and has her first meeting with Batman and Robin. And then with Arkham. She gets releases by playing nice, and tries to convince Batman to see her ways. He does not.

Ivy snaps awake out of the backstory dump. Woodrue is a giant plant monster, and he's siccing the fungus zombies on the gang. She orders Janet, Croc, and Grundy into the cabin for safety. She also (subconsciously or consciously idk it's unclear) sends a biological singal to Harley and Bats about the danger.

They fight. Ivy and Woodrue have a tug of war over control of the zombies. Whoever controls them wins this fight. Ultimately the only way Ivy can keep control is by telling them to kill both of them.

Harley arrives and starts malleting zombies. Janet asks for help because the cabin is being overrun, Harley says Pam first then you, and Janet feels sad because this tells her where she slots into priorities for both of them. Harley breaks her way to Pamela who insists she needs to die to beat Woodrue.

Undine (flower head from last trade) also manifests and tries to help

Red Hood shows up on a motorcycle. He's been sent by Batman to say he finished mass producing Ivy's antidote and is currently in the process of adding it to Gotham's water supply. He also says the only way to fully solve this problem is to utterly destroy all traces of Woodrue's DNA. Harley grabs the bike, uses its flamethrower, and torches the entire part of the swamp they're in.

This definitely kills Woodrue, but Ivy is also screaming in pain. She finally succumbs to the hardships of the day and dies.

Grundy takes her body and lowers it into the swamp water

She has a vision and comes back to life. He powers restore the life in the burned out swamp.

(The death vision had something to do with the spirit of The Green (plants) and the Grey (fungus). They had a truce. The lamia spores were actually stolen from the Grey or something. I don't remember the details)

We settle back into the status quo. The trade ends with Ivy seeling a glimpse of an old timey town in the swamp

[manga-summaries]

I'm in Love with the Villainess vol 8 (manga) summary

Yu had a twin brother who died in birth, and Queen Riche disguised Yu as the son so that she could be eligible for the throne. She did this by hiring a nurse maid (implied to be Misha's family) who placed a crosswise curse on Yu. The curse is nullified every full moon, during which either Misha or Lilly is tasked with watching over Yu

This is news to Rae, who concludes it must have been a plot scraped during the game's development

The school knights are informed that students are going missing, as have some of Lilly's nuns, AND some people have spotted sisters and students out together

The entire cast investigates undercover as commoners. Rae predicts trouble will occur, that Misha is the weak link, and gives her a protective charm. Evidence points towards hypnosis magic or tools, so Rae brings the gang to Hans (the trader from before) for info. After some light threats from Rod, he goes to grab his ledgers but gets attacked. The crew splits to run after the 2 leads and the princes successfully track the true lead to the adventurers' guild where they're attacked by hypnotized adventurers.

Yu and Misha run upstairs to catch the true culprits. Misha finds evidence that people with high aptitude for magic (the students and nuns) are being kidnapped and sold to the Nur Empire. The human traffickers are also using their uniforms as disguise

A hypnotized nun (the homophobic one from last volume) tries to stab Misha, but Yu saves her at the last minute by taking the hit on her arm. She collapses.

The Nur assassin appears in the window and reveals that they coated the blade in sleep drugs. They reveal a lot of info, including that they wanted to be investigated because they want Rae because there's something so weird and unique and powerful about her, and they want it. They taunt Misha with this and try to nurture the seeds of doubt she already has growing, then lunch to attack her

Rae's protective charm works and rebukes the assassin. Misha (and Yu) are saved, but this is further evidence that there's something off with Rae

Meanwhile, Rod and Thane chase the last human trafficker. He, disguised as a student, kidnaps a kid as a hostage. Rod deliberately makes a scene, declares what's happening and who he is while Thane coordinates with Rod's magic to sneak in and take the guy out. This wildly impresses the masses who love Rod. He's good at this.

Everyone gets saved yay

The harvest festival is approaching. The nuns/women with high magical aptitude usually perform a ceremonial dance for good harvest, but with many of them recovering from being kidnapped they ask the students for help. Rae is bad at this but Claire is excellent.

Due to almost being kidnapped by the Nur assassin, Yu is now forced to stay in the palace. Rae and Claire visit to ask what she wants to do about her gender. Lilly's father is also there and insists there's nothing to be done, and Yu capitulates but also admits that wouldn't it be nice if she could be open about her true gender

This lights a fire under Rae. She smuggles Yu a note explaining her plan. Claire asks why she's so invested in this, and Rae reveals that Misaki, the tomboy bully from her previous high school flashback, was actually a trans man who committed suicide since he couldn't live the life he actually wanted. Rae wants to prevent anyone else from feeling the same way

They get Lilly on board easily. She aquires the magic materials they need from the Chruch. Rae tries to get Misha on board too, but she refuses because she doesn't trust Rae anymore. She demands an explanation. Finally, Rae relents and reveals the truth of her situation.

Misha wraps her head around this as an abstract theory, but struggles to truly believe it. She does believe this Rae is different from her Rae. She postits that she was a "lost child," especially since game!Rae was randomly found one day and adopted by her parents. Misha also morns her Rae

Misha doesn't trust Rei, but she's willing to start over, and Rei introduces her true self as Rei Ohashi

It's the day of the festival dance, and the plan is put into action. The festival is massive, like a coliseum, and the entire royal family is in attendance in a royal box. Queen Riche is fretting about whether Yu is safe enough because Yu is her last hope at a power grab for the Church

The dance begins, and Rae is the center of attention. She's excellent. Wait wasn't she terrible?

Misha does her piece of the plan and casts a spell: the disguise drops and Rae is truly Yu, free of the crosswise curse. She announces she's a girl, apologizes for lying to the people, and abdicates her claim on the throne

Wait so who's back in the royal box? That disguise drops and it's Rae. The Queen demands she be arrested, but Rod and Thane protect her for long enough for Yu to make her speech. Yu had asked them to help because she trusts and loves them- and they trust her back-, even if she didn't reveal the full plan to them

Rae gets arrested and thrown in the royal jail. Claire and Lilly come to visit after some time. Someone tried to poison her food, but the ghost of Misaki kicked it away from her. The king decides Rae is too clever to waste, and deems her an officer of the secrete service and will serve him

Yu is disinherited and will become a nun. In the convent, in confession, and confesses to the sin of selfishness and putting her desires above others. The voice on the other side argues that's not a sin, and Misha reveals herself. She has also become a nun to stay with Yu

Previously, Misha had revealed that she's in love with Yu. Rae asked how Yu embracing her true gender will affect that love, and she didn't know. Misha decides she's willing to find out.

In a bonus chapter, Yu and Lilly chat and are still friends, and it's revealed we have a Lady Pope and also some bishop looking men leading the Church

[manga-summaries]

Birds of Prey (2023) trade 3 (issues #14 - #19) summary

Queen Nubia has asked the Birds to save 5 missing Amazons as a way to rebuild trust and repair the groups' relationship after they broke in to Themyscira.

Cass is going in undercover as elite hired muscle to the suspect, a wellness company named Ninth Day, who has massive government contracts. She's exactly what they're looking for, and they turn on her and capture her for their experiements. She tries to send a status update but the signal fails to send.

Back at base, everyone is fretting about Cass since she missed their check in time. Barbara decides that if she misses her second and third check in time, then they'll head in, but until then they'll trust her and her skills and not ruin her mission. Everyone loves Cass, so everyone bristles at this, most of all Barda who spars (then plays a fighing game) with Grace and Onyx to relieve tension

Back to Cass, she's been captured and learns the Amazons, as well as many other supremely talented women, are being used as, like, resources and experimented on. She breaks out of her cell, has a mutated attack dog named Bella set on her, befriends the mutated attack dog, frees a woman, and lets herself be captured so she can send out her previous message.

The message is received, and all the other Birds (minus Sin) teleport in. They're beset by women who've been experimented on and turned Hulk-like. Cass is among them.

Barda wrestles with Cass and grounds her enough that she can point out the chip in her spine. Dinah removes that and basically stops her rampage.

Evil corp's main guy, Xane, a wellness dude, injects the chemicals into the other big wigs to hold off the Birds, but they're tidily handled and forced to help make a cure. Xane runs, but one of the captured Amazons manages to throw and inject him with the chemicals as he escapes.

Sin also arrives with Cela at the last minute to help. They deliver the woman back to their homes.

Next arc: someone sends Barbara a voice clip of the League of Shadows (who think Sin is their Chosen One), they know where she is, and they think this is a great time to nab her. The group decide to set a trap with Sin and Dinah going on a weekend trip to a lakehouse while Barda feels rejected for not being needed and stomps off with Cass. Constantine calls nedding help, ie a side quest for those two.

The League attacks that night. They + Barabra remotely easily hold them off, except a sniper shoots Dinah in the shoulder. Sin and/or Megeara snaps, manifests a powerful display, and scares them away.

Meanwhile, Constantine is farrying an unwilling demon back to its home dimension by letting it possess him but then binding himself. Barter is also after this demon. Barda and Cass handily deal with Barter's regenerating golem, Cass does not even blink at any of the demon's temptations or tricks to get free, and they shove him through the portal. Constantine waltzes back out a moment later

We end with Sin and Dinah talking about the potential blending of Sin and Megaera, and Sin notes that the League lackeys were terrified but then some of them looked happy, like they have something new to covet in Megeara

[manga-summaries]

Dorohedoro vol 14 summary

We open with Aikawa looking in the mirror and seeing... someone else. He tries to kill himself via multiple stab wound to kill whoever it is he sees

Risu wakes in Kawajiri and Nikaido's care. They introduce themselves as friends of Aikawa's, who entrusted them with his care.

They talk: Nikaido shares that she's friends with Caiman who was cursed and has no memories, but when he eats sorcerers' heads there's a tiny Risu in Caiman's mouth. They deduce that Risu's curse must have gotten stuck in Caiman somehow. They do not share that they suspect Caiman and Aikawa are the same person and that he/they/one of their personalities probably was the one to kill Risu. Kawajiri says Risu needs to fully kill the person he cursed to get his magic back in order, because someone interfered before and killed the target before the curse could

Kawajiri also gives Nikaido a helmet that forces the wearer to confront their greatest fears (but he doesn't tell her that part). Nikaido gets trapped in an illusion to confront her trauma, her brain unknowingly summons Caiman as a psycopomp/protector, and kicks her trauma's ass. When she wakes after 2 days, she's stronger than ever and has devil horns.

She generates enough magic smoke to cause an explosion everyone sees, and this allows her to finally perfect her magic and go back in time with Kawajiri. They save Yakumo, and fate (or Nikaido's magic without knowing it) get her to their parents who originally raised them. But Nikaido shares that every time she goes back in time, things shift and her past gets more and more untethered. Still, they go back to the present victorious

Meanwhile, the remnants of En's crew are holes up in an underground tunnel fort. They fox En's body, but won't bring him back until they get his little brain devil back. Sho (invisible guy) starts taking charge, and he sends an invisible Fujita on a reconnaissance mission on the Cross Eyes' boss

Speaking of, they're starting to notice Natsuki is missing. Dokuga keeps calling her but she never picks up. Another head hears a strange noise, and they all almost find her body (and Dokuga pieces it together) but boss!Caiman shows up at the last second and says it's time to go

Go where? On a sorcerer mass murder spree trying to find the super powerful one who caused that explosion. It's bad y'all. They basically massacre the whole town, the grunts on clean up duty are creeped out, and even the heads are exhausted and unnerved. Boss!Caiman is gleefully murdering the entire time. Specifically, anyone who runs is left alone, and anyone confident enough to fight back is killed

This culminates in him going to Tanaba's meat pie shop. The three there try to fight back: the take out the grunts easily, Tanba lights boss!Caiman on fire, meat-pie-magic-kid holds his own for a bit (at least with boss!Caiman showing off and toying with him), and it's enough of a distraction for Kirion (clown mask) to slice his face off with a meat cleaver. The Cross Eyes heads also make it there to tell boss they found the location of the magic blast

Things get weird

The face sloughs off, multiple heads explode fron the neck, they all dissolve away, leaving a headless body

Then, one head reemerges: Aikawa.

The Cross Eyes heads are confused. Risu's partner is their boss? Of their boss is just wearing his mask??

Meat-pie-kid makes to attack Aikawa!Caiman, and the heads go !!!. But Aikawa turns to him calmly and says to do it. Meat-pie thinks the voice sounds familiar

Aikawa!Caiman is transformed into a giant meat pie

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Gachiakuta vol 6 summary

We resume mid-flashback, with the owl mask person and their companion barging in to Amo and her rapist's room. The rapist threats them with his vital instrument, threatening to kick them to death (which is NOT how the instrument works when Amo wields it. Do the special instruments change based on the wielder?). Owl mask one hit KOs him, takes the shoes, and gives them to Amo saying "Pieces have fallen out of your heart. These will fill the void.[...] You can hang on to those until the time comes. Use them with love."

With that, owl mask grabs their companion and leaps out the hole in the wall, wings sprouting, carrying the both up and away as Amo silently looks on in awe at the "angel"

But it's shortlived as the rapist stands and demands the shoes back. They argue then physically fight over them. Amo recounts disassociating whenever he'd hurt her, but the vital instrument is bolstering her emotions so she isn't now; artistically, it's only when she stops disassociating that we clearly see his face. She ends up accidentally pushing him out of the same hole the "angel" lept from, and he falls to his death

After this, she is alone. She repaints the time with him more rosy in her memories as a coping mechanism, and she wants to be loved by whatever random strangers show up at her door, but they all end bad. She also sees the "angel" come back to the Surface (without the companion). Throughout this recounting, she's also sketching the owl mask on the floor, and Rudo confirms it's the same person he bumped into just before finding Ragto's body

Rudo had come back in to apologize, and Amo also reflects self-deprecatingly on her own actions and past. She says that she and Rudo are the same- missing pieces of the hearts that the special-symbol vital instruments fill- and that people only know how to hurt each other. Rudo counters that he'd like to learn to not hurt others, and they could learn together. They part on friendly terms with promises to visit again soon as the crew drives away back to base.

But then. Cut back to Amo's door. We see Jabber approach. We hear him forcable take her shoes from her, but we don't see what happens

Cut back to the crew. People are still injured, so they stop by the city of One and the old lady doctor for volume 1. Her grandkids are visiting, and they're the healer Cleaner and their mask maker. We learn the old lady- Alice Stilza- is renowned for making major progress in the treatment of pollution disease.

The grandkids also warn that the Cloud is nearing. This is a rain of garbage the Sphere drops as it travels, and it's lethal if you don't take cover (and even then you can just simply be unlucky)

Semiu casually calls: base is being attacked, so take the back entrance in.

They're being attacked by a gang who want Rudo (to sell him I guess?). They attack with bazookas, but the building stands tall: it's protected by the ultimate hikkikomori who no one can get past without permission. Semiu wipes the floor with these guys. Her glasses seem to let her see their bullets for her to dodge them, and their bazooka shells to grab them and reroute them back at them. The pests are dealt with before the crew even get back to base

They take a break to rest and recuperate by getting dinner at a restaurant. Rudo is confused why they're not on guard about being attacked, but all of them expound on the value of rest.

They're joined by more Cleaners, Team Child: Guita Hebby Fantasia (dinosaur), Dear Santa, and the chaperone Bro Santa.

Guita is an aggressively friendly child, and Rudo goes to the other side of the restaurant, sitting next to a hooded stranger, to escape.

The stanger starts chatting with him. Then, he presents Amo's boots and says the Raiders are looking for their match. Oh btw he's also the raiders' new boss.

All the Cleaners leap into action, but the boss' companion is the manhole teleporter from before. She starts sucking in boss and Rudo, but Enjin just grabs on to Rudo's ankle and all of them get pulled in...

... into a dim pocket dimension, with all of the powerful Raiders. The two groups square up against each other as Rudo grows furious demanding to know what happened to Amo.

They'd planned for all of the Cleaners tagging along. Boss checks his pocket watch, and just on time, portals open with rushing rivers of garbage. Everyone except Rudo get swept away from each other. The Raiders then teleport to each meet one Cleaner. They've set up 1-v-1 fights

Jabber squares off against Zanka; puffy-pants-comb-woman against Riyo; shy child against Enjin; cowboy against the Santas.

Guita/dinosaur child is unaccounted for.

Rudo stays in the starting area with Boss. He introduces himself as Zodyl Typon. He's dismissive of Rudo's concern over his friends and calls it a distractor from the (*cough his) point of the conversation. He tries to plant doubts about aligning with the Cleaners and encourages Rudo's rage.

He wants to take down the Sphere, and he wants Rudo to help him.

[manga-summaries]

Poison Ivy (2022) trade 3 (issues #13-18) summary

Ivy's back in Gotham. Selina stops by to say hi, Batman stops by to say watch yourself and stay on good behavior.

She's living with Harley (and Janet in tow) in the city, but she's also setting up a safe house and base of opperations in an abandoned hunting shack in Slaughter Swamp outside the city. Except it's not quite abandoned: Killer Croc is living there ever since the sewers became not really an option because of Ivy destroying a bunch while she was high on god juice, and also rich people condo construction. He offers to give up to shack to her if she deals with the condo.

Pam goes to sneak in to investigate the condo while she sends Janet to apply for a job to get info that way. The condo is being financed by Peter Undine. He invented a self-healing metal, but it's creation causes massive toxin sewage. He dumped the sewage under this building's construction to hide it, but instead it's infected the building and him: he now has a giant blue flower for a head and has some connection to the green, while the building has gone all haunted trippy wonky, and keeps mysteriously killing off construction workers

Ivy is trapped in its trippy, haunted corridors

Also, Janet has a meeting with Batman who tells her to leave this life before she's in to deep. She panics and hits him in the face with her bag. Harley then pulls her out, and Janet kisses her

Janet, girl, you are getting arooooound. Good for you girl, good for you

Croc comes to check on Ivy and also gets stuck there. Ivy decides to try to escape by subsuming and digesting all of the rot in the building while Croc holds off Undine. They escape and collapse the high rise in the process. Ivy held up her end of the bargin, so the hunting shack is now hers

The next night, she has a dream that's a mind meld with the lamia spores and many of the people she infected. This has actually been going on for a while, and those in her dreams are either dead or on death's door and about to turn into fungus zombies. Undine is also there.

She's using the hunting shack to rush making antidotes for the lamia spores so that she can vaccinate all of Gotham against the hoard that is returning to mother (her). Croc is immune already, but also he's scared of needles so his blood can't help.

The zombies (same people from the dream) are here quickly and attacking. Solomon Grundy also shows up and gets convinced to help to protect his swamp. They hold off these handful of zombies, but more are coming and Pam is exhausting herself failing to make antidote fast enough. She begrudgingly asks Batman for help mass producing it, and he takes a sample of it

Back at the shack, Ivy is having terrible gut pain. The cause erupts out of her stomach: Woodroe, reborn

Overall there's a lot of mother, death, and rebirth vibes to everything happening here with Ivy/the lamia cast as the mother

[manga-summaries]

Gachiakuta vol 5 summary

Amo invites the gang back to her house. Which is a giant dilapidated tower in No Man's Land. Specifically she brings them to her "bedroom" on the top floor

They try to ask her about whether she's seen anyone go to and from the surface, but she bulldozes the conversation to be about romance and types. Enjin asks if this conversation is her fee for the information, and this is absolutely not the right thing to say. She snaps about just being used, and rants about wanting to become friends but now they can't because everyone is rude and mean.

She reveals her vital instrument, her boots, which have the same symbol as Rudo's gloves. They mind control Delmon (the giant gardener guy) into seeing a vision of his dead wife? loved one who he tried to cultivate flowers for, and the vision tricks him into attacking the others to protect Amo who he thinks is his dead wife. He shoots Enjin.

Gradually she starts taking over people one by one. Rudo is the only other one who's vision we see: Chiwa, the girl he likes but who threw him away with everyone else. He resents her, but his emotions are being overriden by happiness from the vital instrument.

Amo reveals that the shoes work on smell. Smell triggers a happy memory of a loved one, and they think Amo is that loved one. It's implied that Riyo is seeing someone dead just like Delmon is.

The three left (Zanka, Tamsy, and the recorder supporter Tomme) are the only ones left. They put their masks back on to protect themselves but still need to deal with their mind controlled comrades.

Tamsy reveals his vital instrument: a distaff, used to wind and unspool rope. He ties up the mind control victims, but the visions are too strong. He pulverizes all of them through the all the floors of the tower to the ground. They're dead??? Psych, the magic tattoos from last volume give them 1 chance to come back from one mortal wound.

He ties up Amo like a spider web, and Enjin sneaks back in and steals one of her shoes. They convince her to end the control. Everyone who got hit is left emotionally reeling, many of them seeing dead loved ones in the vision and being punted back into reality

Rudo snaps. He starts pummeling Amo. The others manage to pull him off, but he does a number on her, insisting she needs to see consequences for what she did. This is interspersed with cuts to Semiu talking to boss man about what she saw when she Looked at Rudo: there's something inside him that's growing and that could destroy the world

Enjin reminds him that they came here for information for Rudo, and he blanches realizing what he just did. They step outside and have a heart to heart. Rudo feels like he was emotionally stuck putting up with stuff on the Sphere, and now here he's not putting up with things but he is just snapping at anyone around him out of anger and has regressed to what he was like as a child. Enjin encourages him that everyone, even adults, have things they need to work on themselves on.

Meanwhile, Tomme patches up Amo. They get to actually talking, and she reveals that her mother "introduced her to her first love," which is how she got her treasure of her vital instrument shoes, and she saw "an angel" crossing between the Sphere and the ground. She moves into a flashback

When she was a child, her mother sold her to a human trafficker, saying this is the man she will love and who will love her. He takes her to this tower as their "home". He materially provides for her while routinely raping her. When she says she doesn't like how that feels, he claims that what she's feeling is being in love with him. After one such event, someone knocks on the door: the masked person from volume one who bumped into Rudo while fleeing the scene of Regto's death

[manga-summaries]

Dorohedoro vol 10 summary

Prof Kasukabe recounts meeting Ai Coleman (the face of the wax figure he saw in the shack in the woods that used to be his wife's): he showed up at the clinic in the pouring rain, worked there for a year because he wanted to become a sorcerer, almost killed himself jumping into toxic sewage to nab a sorcerer body to use for parts, and got Kasukabe to attempt sorcerer surgery on him. He shows a book to Kasukabe which explained why he wanted to be a sorcerer but the viewer doesn't get to see. By some miracle he survived the surgery and was recovering for a LONG time, but then Kasukabe found him dead, apparently murdered by sorcerers.

Back in the present, Ai's grave is empty, and he's not been turned into a zombie on zombie Halloween night. Where has his body gone? Is he really dead?

Kasukabe (and Johnson) follow Shin and Noi back into the sorcerer world to investigate.

Ebisu remembers her former life, most importantly her parents. She silently starts the journey home and Fujita follows her, despite her attempts to drive him off. When she reaches her parents' mansion, she is greeted by... herself?

A housekeeper informs her that when she went missing, her parents were so distraught that they went to a sorcerer who could basically make clones. Expect it's not really a clone. It's more a monster wearing Ebisu's face. Her parents ran off in fear, leaving the housekeeper and fake!Ebisu. fake!Ebisu finds them. She kills the housekeeper. Ebisu manages to run and grab a stash of black powder and critically wounds fake!Ebisu, who unfortunately just powers through with a hole in her chest and critically wounds/kills Ebisu

Enter Fujita who finally caught up. He also takes black powder to finally kill fake!Ebisu and tries to save Ebisu. Except she is literally falling apart. Like, her arm and part of her head come off like one of those sandwiche meat slicers. Ebisu swears he'll get her back to Em/Judas' Ear to get her resurrected

Speaking of En, back at the mansion, he's collapsed presumably due to Nikaido related despair. A report comes in pointing towards her and Caiman's direction and he flies off with Shin, Noi, and Kasukabe to follow

Caiman, Nikaido, and Natsuki are spending the night at an onsen in Berith. Caiman can't sleep so he goes on a walk where he bumps into a few of the cross eyes grunts. The two parties threaten each other as they try to figure out if the others are enemies, and Caiman hazards at saying he's a friend of Risu's. They ask if Caiman is Aikawa, Risu's friend from school and meat pie boss's friend.

Before the conversation can continue, En's attack begins. The cross eyes run off and regroup with the rest of them while Caiman and Nikaido find each other (and Natsuki is presumably trapped by rubble in their hotel room).

Fight!

There's some back and forth until En uses mushroom spores to sprout from Caiman's stomach out. Nikaido attacks En, who remarks Caiman must be incredibly important to her for her to be able to fight En even with the contract. She replies that Caiman's the only thing she cares about. En looks... enraged or stricken by this.

Caiman explodes back into the fight with a punch to En's face (wait, Caiman's face is different), En goes to attack him and Nikaido jumps in between to take the attack

His face IS different: it's human. Nikaido grabs at him while En pulls her away and Caiman falls. You can’t quite tell if she manages to touch him, but immediately after as he falls and passes out, smoke in the form of the man in his mouth expells from his body. It says "You were killed by someone other than me..."

En, Nikaido's unconscious body, and Noi fly back to his mansion while Shin (and Kasukabe and Johnson) are tasked with finding Caiman's body. Kasukabe see that smoke man difting off but can't tell what it is. Then he finds Caiman's lizard head sliced clean off laying on the ground.

Also there's a lava pit here now. Idk if that has any significance.

We round out the volume with the cross eyes grunts regrouped and hiding in a wheat field while the battle blows over. They swap stories about their missing boss: he was an insanely skilled fighter, intimidating, obsessive about the devil's they would steal from sorcerers bodies, loved food... and he looks like Caiman's newly revealed face?

Was Caiman their boss?

[manga-summaries]

Poison Ivy (2022) Trade 2 (Issues #7-12) Summary

Poison Ivy targets an upstart fracking company in Montana. They're touting a new "green" fracking technology that is somehow built on the same lamia spores infecting Ivy, polluting the local land, turning locals into plant monsters. The CEO also worked with Woodroe, and she nerfs Ivy's power with a spray, leaving the fungus to kill her

Enter Janet from HR. Ivy saved her when blowing up a chemical plant in Gotham in an annual or something. She convinces her to go into the CEO's lab to find an antidote, and Janet begs Ivy not to mess up this job because she has liver cancer, surgery scheduled in a month, and she can't afford to lose her health insurance

She manages to save Ivy and hits her boss in the process. Ivy turns the woman into a monstrous tree

Aaaaand Janet's lost her healthcare. Ivy convinces her to come with her back to Seattle because she knows some surgeons who owe her favors who will do her surgery.

And now they're roommates

Harley arrives! They reconnect, they fuck, Harley begs Ivy to give her a taste of the lamia, Ivy acquiesces, and Harley has a nice trip. She also shows her photos of that motel woman's garden that grew giant overnight. It seems Ivy didn't irreconcilably lose her powers, they just need time to recovery. Pamela says she needs to stay in Seattle for now, Harley needs to be in Gotham, but they long to be able to be together again soon

Psych! We got more issues greenlit so now Ivy is going back to Gotham to be with Harley

Janet convinces her to go to a wellness camp by Pwyneth Galtrow's Goop. It's a bunch of feux-feminist selfcare type stuff and Ivy is seriously considering just killing them all. But she eats some of the food- made from wild forged mushroom- and Oh No. It's got a wild strain of the lamia fungus in it. Ivy originally wanted to start a pandemic, the changed her mind, but now it's out of her control. Janet and the other women also eat and drink it before she can stop anyone.

Everyone gets a hivemind psychosexual high. Janet and Ivy have sex, there's an orgy, and then uh oh, it mutates into physically signs similar to Ivy and people start freaking out. Pwyneth Galtrow, the owner and bankaccount of this whole thing, turns into one of the giant fungus zombies who keep popping up around Ivy. Ivy kills her, and realizes she has some control over this wild strain yet. Like, mind controly control

She tried to use the women to stop an oil truck protest style, but almost gets them killed and realizes that's not a great plan

They head back to the city where they all crash at one of the women's houses while Ivy makes a cure to the wild lamia strain. She's successful, but one of the women refuses. She says there's too many chemicals in and and it's unsafe. Ivy says if she doesn't take the vaccine she'll pass along this disease to her family and kids but she still refuses. Hashtag postcovid writing

The journey back to Gotham resumes

[manga-summaries]

Birds of Prey (2023) Trade 2 (Issues 7-13) summary

Someone wants to kill Barbara, and they've hijacked Mia's/Map's time travel tech to do it. But where Mia uses The Green to make it work, they use The Red

So Barabra and Dinah go to ask their friend Mari/Vixen if she can help because she also uses The Red for her powers. She also had a problem recently where she was seemingly possessed into an attempted burglary where the goal seemed to be getting her caught rather than actually burglaring anything. Related? Signs point to yes

Mari convinces the Birds to put on a fashion show to lure the person out. They get attacked there, Barda gets naked, and a portal opens. Barbara goes through the portal and the others dive in after her. But Mia gets kicked out of the portal and is stuck outside.

Mia spends the rest of the trade tapping other heroes for help: first Zealot who brings in Constintine who brings in Xanthe (yay Xanthe!!!)

In the portal, then get attacked by a monster and jump through further portals while looking for a missing Barabra. Every time they jump through a portal, the pocket dimension reskins itself based on the first person through.

The gang meets Cela (and her wolf dog) who gives the run down of what's happening: she's a septuplet from the future and each of her sisters had a power. Barbara kills their mom (a supervillian) in the futute, they all leave the real world for this pocket dimension, the oldest- Maia- figures out how to steal Map's time travel tech and snaps and starts killing her sisters to absorb their powers, and Cela is the last one alive. She's trying to kill Barbara and destroy the Birds of Prey in revenge for her mom's death

Barbara is also stuck in a prison throughout all this and eventually breaks out to reunite with the others

Eventually Cass makes a plan: lure Maia out, drag her into a Spirit World (Chinese afterlife) skinned world, and make her confront the ghosts of the sisters she killed. This works and gets her to make a portal back to the real world that everyone else follows.

Both sides of the team reunited, they all battle it out with Maia. Ultimately she flees back into her pocket dimension to plot against them another day. Constantine at least gets a magic tracker on her so the Birds with have a heads up the next time she attacks

Cela has now managed to escape the pocket dimension but she's stuck in the present day instead of the future. Cass offers her help but she turns away saying she knows how to find Cass if she needs

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Batman and Robin (2023) Trade 1 (Issues 1-6)

Batman's trying real hard to bond with his son while dealing with a menagerie of villains. That's it that's the trade.

Shush (a woman dressed in bandages) is working with Man-Bat and hired animal themed villians to do some nefarious plan to "fix Gotham." Their plan seems to involve messing with DNA. She injects Batman with some chemical or pheromone or something that makes bats attack him.

Meanwhile, Bruce is trying to get Damian to go to high school so he can make friends and have something of a chance at life outside of their masks. Damian really doesn't want to until he reveals that the principal is one of his former teachers in the League (Mistress Harsh) and is now Shush. Now he's willing to go just so he can investigate her.

She coaches the school's soccer team, which Damian joins to spy on her. He can't find any proof (yet) but he does learn the goalie is weirdly skilled, and also convinced Victor Zsasz is his dad. He tries to free him but fails thanks to Batman and Robin. This fuels Damian's belief that his principal is indeed Mistress Harsh, and she's secretly training students.

They go to a ping of activity at one of Man-Bat's old labs. Some, like, cultists are holding a rally spouting the same kinds of things that Man-Bat and Shush are. Suddenly, someone takes them all out. Hey it's Flatline! We end the trade with her jumping into Damian's arms.

(Also throughout all of this, Damian is drawing a self-insert comic about a murder mystery. It's delightfully teenager cringy and I love him so much so I think that's the most important detail of these issues)

[manga-summaries]

Poison Ivy (2022) Trade 1 (Issues #1-6) Summary

This spins out of an event? previous series? idk I didn't read it. where Ivy had the power of a god. Harley and an old associate (loaded implications) saved her life by stripping her of these powers, which has sent Pamela into a spiral. She longs for that level of power and connection to The Green again

She steals some ancient fucked up fungus and infects herself with it, then starts a cross country road trip alone. This fungus is now killing her, and she's trying to survive long enough to spread the fungus like a disease to cause a mass human extinction event.

She has some control over the infection, and she deliberately infects everyone she meets. She tells it to lay dormant and spread. She originally wants to survive long enough to get to Seattle, board a cargo ship, and infect the global trade network

But, like, she starts feeling conflicted about it. She murders some assholes along the way, but mostly she meets normal, kind people who she infects: a kind dinner worker, a starving poet who shares a meal with her, a motel owner who gives her free lodging in exchange for landscaping help, a coworker at an Amazon warehouse who's putting up with sexual harassment because it's the only job she can get.

Also, someone seems to be after her. There are hints that the people she outright immediately kills with the fungus aren't quite as dead as she thought.

Her own infection is getting worse as she reaches Seattle. She's hallucinating Batman giving her advice. She goes to confront her old teacher The Green Man/Jason Woodrue: a man who took advantage of her, caused her original powers, and who she stole the fungus from

They fight. She infects him but he beats out the fungus due to his better healing factor and that he made it in the first place. She ultimately wins, but is dying even more now. She needs to steal his powers if she has any hope of surviving.

She eats his flowery, fungusy, rotten corpse. She absorbs his healing factor and A LOT of the fungus.

She stumbles out. A child offers her a scarf because she looks cold and ill, and her now heighted powers see him (and all people) as they are at a molecular level: ecosystems ourselves.

She realizes that trying to kill everyone is misguided. The people you meet every day on the street are just the readily available targets who are trying their best; they're not the actual sources of the Green's problems. Those causing these problems- profiting from these problem, making these choices at a macro level, building the system this way- they're the real targets.

Time to eat the rich

(Also, the framing device all throughout these issues is that she's writing letters to Harley. In the final pages, Harley decides to come find her)

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Mr. Villain's Day Off worldbuilding compilation vol 1-6

League of Evil

Alien organization that is hell bent on taking over Earth

Mr. Villain/General: a general in the League and it's strongest warrior. He's a big believer of work life balance, has a weakness for cute animals (chiefly pandas followed by cats), children, convenience store limited edition items, and treats. His underlings adore him but also affectionately fear him.

The tail and shoulder claws he wears at work are in fact a different creature. Its job is to hold his cape

He has a full chest tattoo of an extinct flower from his homeworld twisting from his shoulder to his thigh

He has a little sparkly alien brushbug type creature that helps him with tiny stuff at work, like holding his smartphone

Rooney: the tech guy, loves his kotatsu

C-018: robot cat created by another group of aliens. They threw it away when it couldn't be a weapon. Mr. Villain rescued it, Rooney did some tests on it and cleaned it, and now it lives with Mr. Villain. It has a complex about needing to be useful

Trigger: same rank as Mr. Villain, hates him

Meurah: the League's best torturer. Weirdly good at teaching.

Ul: the League's medic. She shares her body with her brother Ashe. She's dramatically pessimistic while her brother is extremely cheerful and optimistic. They can both be conscious at one time and wrestle control of the body from each other, and they can also fall unconscious and let the other take over. She falls unconscious every time she moves dramatically.

Ashe: his body is asleep on their home world, so Ul is letting him share her body. He holds some level of command and leads missions.

The Rangers

The Rangers work on a magic system. When a ranger dies, their magic passes on to their child. They live together in a protected compound full of sci-fi staff and researchers. There are 5 rangers, and their magics seem to resonate with each other.

Dawn Red: their leader. Always getting lost. Innocent, gullable, and trusting in a way that others feel they need to protect. Has run into civilian!Mr. Villain and knows he's a member of the League and is down to fight him, but can always be convinced to call a truce for one reason or another. Fights with a sword.

Sky Blue: second oldest after Black, and the first of the new generation that Black found. Serious. Has a younger brother. His dad died when he was young. He's basically all the younger ranger's older brother. They only call him brother when they want something from him though. Fights with a bow.

Daybreak Pink: wishes she was a magical girl instead of on a sentai team. Was found shortly after Blue and is just a bit younger, so her mom must have died when she was young too. Standoffish. Seems to have a bit of a crush on civilian!Mr. Villain. Fights with martial arts and by enhancing her own body.

Aurora Green: young twins Sora and Mugi. They fuse to create the Green Ranger. They're well spoken and serious for their age, but decidedly still young children. Everyone in the compound acts as their parents, and they are frequently chaperoned by random staff members. Fights with energy pulse blasts and shields.

Twilight Black: the only one left of the last generation. He found each of the other rangers while they were children and helped raise them with the facility. He seems to be nocturnal, and the only one who's pieced together Mr. Villain's civilian info with his work identity. Currently fights with a spear.

General Worldbuilding

Santa exists. He gives gifts to children every year, including most of the rangers. Mr. Villain helped him one year and now they hang out every once in awhile. Someone who works as a panda Santa mascot character also dreamed of helping Santa and Mr. Villain, so it seems he occupies the dream world and others can visit.

Trees have spirits. The two we've seen take the form of children. Mr. Villain frequents a park where a tree spirit is in love with the cherry blossom tree (spirit) on the other side of the park. The cherry tree spirit only materializes every so often with the spring blooms. The tree gets cut down, and its wood used for a bench in the park. The bench is even closer to the cherry tree, so it all works out. Later, the a rumor spreads that if you confess your love beneath the cherry tree, you'll see its spirit so now love confessions are a frequent sight.

There are aliens other than Mr. Villain's homeworld. The only other one we've see so far is also antagonistic to humans and specializes in making weapons, like C-018 and Stitch (à la Lilo and Stitch)(as seen in a brief cameo)(I think. At least it looked like a Stitch reference to me)

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I'm In Love with the Villainess vol 7 summary (manga)

Back from vacation, Claire has a new found passion for fixing society. Unfortunately she's like 16 and had no idea what to do with that

Yu suggests going to the church, and Rae passes the message to Claire. After some proding aimed at invigorating her, she demands to go

At the church, they meet a shy softspoken young nun who also has a screaming streak that pops out here and there. She is Sister Lilly Lilium, daughter of the Bauer Kinddom Cancellor, cardinal of the Spiritual Church, and Yu's betrothed. She describes some of the social work the church does, and also shares her opinion that the aristocracy will soon fall because the currect social order can't take the social strain anymore

On the way back from the bathroom, Rae overhears some other sisters express disguist over their own speculations that Claire and Lilly are lovers. Rae butts in to challenge their homophobia. Sister Lilly overhears, and she immediately falls in love with Rae and insists they will marry

Cue comedic fighting over Rae between Lilly and Claire. Rae turns Lilly down, stating with a sad expression that first loves never last. Claire and Lilly smell a story, and they hunt her down to force her to tell it. Que a flashback to real Rei's high school days:

There was a love square between 4 girls, none of whom were out and one of whom was a bully who weaponized homophobia against Rei out of jealousy. Rei bonded with the class outcast over yuri, and realized she was gay and learned confidence from the new friend and yuri. Ultimately, no one ended up with anyone else and it was all a teenage mess. They met up years later and are now on chill terms. We also get a brief glimpse of Rei's real parents being supportive

Everyone is back from break, but school hasn't started again just yet. Rod starts a game of dogeball, with the singular winner getting to be a "king for the day" and making a declaration

Ultimately Yu wins, and he asks Misha if it's alright if he gives her a request

Sister Lilly stays over at the dormitory after the game. Lilly, Claire, and Rae squabble over there being only one bed for her and Rae, but actually Misha's bed is open because she's spending the night with Yu.

SPENDING THE NIGHT WITH YU?

Claire freaks out, thinking this will cause political problems with Misha facing the repercussions if it ever gets out, but Lilly insists it's fine because "two girls can't get pregnant."

Oh no. That was a massive political secret she just dropped. Only a few people know. We end with Misha leaving clothes for a naked Yu in his room with the line "To put it simply, Master Yu was a girl."

[manga-summaries]

Gachiakuta vol 4 summary

Rudo tries dessert and candy for the first time and falls in love. Sweets were not something available to underclass Spherites but it's available on the ground due to Givers who specialize in food. I taste a theme being built: Is life better as underclass in a privileged place or as an equal in a poor place?

Training time! Zanka, Enjin, and Riyo spar with Rudo to help him figure out the details of his powers. Zanka realizes that he can only use items that are broken or discarded. He can also only do it so many times before giving himself a nosebleed because his physical skill is far outclassed by the quality of his gloves. Riyo postulates that his temporary vital instruments dissolve or die once they've meet their purpose and are no longer needed. So he's not "killing" the items (which he was worried about) but giving them a second chance to fulfill their purpose. They speculate what it means that his gloves are part of a "series"

Jump to Jabber and Cthoni meeting their boss. He mutters a bunch of different nonsense phrase (ie plot teasers for future developments) and we get a zoom in on something he's wearing: the same symbol from Rudo's gloves

That night, Rudo washes his gloves. He whimpers and moans through it because of the pain that the mystery injuries on his hands cause him (which the gloves usually dampen). Riyo breaks into his room to check on him. She asks about the injuries, and Rudo says only his good for nothing dad would be able to answer what they really are

We meet the crew for this journy: Enjin, Zanka, and Riyo from Akuta (the name of our HQ); Delmon and Tamsy from Eager (another Cleaner base?); and three supporters Gris, Follo, and a recorder named Tomme

We also learn they have a resident artisan mask maker who cannot be restrained by deadlines or expectations. He's still working on Rudo's mask, and they can't venture into No Man's Land until it's done. So in the meantime, they go to get supplies and art charms in Canvas Town

Canvas Town- or the City of Graffiti- is an artist town. Every single surface in town is fair game for graffiti. It's protector, the Spellcaster, has a special vital instrument passed from generation to generation that grants the owner the ability to imbue anything they want into their art. It's rare for a vital instrument to be passed on like that, but it happens here and there. The Spellcaster works regularly with the Cleaners, giving them charms and graffiting their HQ (whether they want it or not). Unfortunately, the current one died just last night: not from deliberate violence, or an attack, but from body pollution- an every day tragedy on the ground. Personally, I think this calls to mind a parallel to the opening of the volume: Is life better as underclass in a privileged place or as an equal in a poor place?

The Spellcaster named his successor Remlin Tysark, a kid who's been sobbing in the corner this whole time. Enjin is good natured and resigned to the situation- oh well we can't get what we came for so we'll just go normal shopping- but the kid takes a deep breath, then screams that they're ready.

They go to the roof. The very first thing they do with their instrument is to launch spray can fireworks in memory of their predecessor. The town collectively joins in. Rudo looks at his own gloves. Did he give them power, or did he inherit the power they already had?

They get their charms. Enjin and the Mayor of the town (who's looking out for the kid) discuss the nature of the inherited instrument while the kid talks about artistic value and freedom.

On the way back to base, Enjin lets Rudo go trash picking for supplies for the trip. Unbeknownst to Rudo, we get a close up of a TV. It flickers to life. There's a figure on it. The leader of the boss antagonist? Is he wearing Rudo's gloves...?

Back at HQ, Rudo gets his mask. The mask artisan is named Augustus, he's boisterous, and his sister is the healer Giver from last volume. Enjin also lets Rudo go trash diving for supplies for the trip. In the next chapter, we see Rudo has brought this TV along in the car as a supply

Enter No Man's Land! They immediately fight a hoard of giant scorpions. All of the Givers we've seen before get a chance to show off, including Rudo.

As the literal dust settles, a girl shows up. She's not wearing a mask. She asks if they're there to talk to Amo. Is this the woman they're looking for? She seems to know about people coming and going safely from the Sphere, so perhaps? Riyo and Enjin have a few cryptic lines about whether he'll be okay to handle this or if Riyo should take over. Our last few pages are a teaser presumably back at her house, Enjin falling to his knees and puking

[manga-summaries]

This Monster Wants to Eat Me vol 2 summary

At the outskirts of the festival, blood of the monster Shiori killed still covering both of them, Hinako shares what happened to her family:

On the drive back from a family trip when she was 6, their car skid off the side of a mountain and lit on fire, sinking into the sea as it burned. Shiori was thrown from the car as it fell, leaving her burned and the only survivor, watching helplessly as her family died. While watching, she heard a voice saying "Hinako, you must survive". She has longed for death since but doesn't feel she can be the one to end it

Shiori reaffirms that she will grant Hinako the death she longs for so long as she truly lives life and discover joy and hope. When she forgets about wanting to die is when she will eat her

They return to the festival still covered in blood. Humans can't see monster blood so they're fine. Except, Miko spots them

They walk to school together the next day, and Hinako lies about not seeing the fireworks to Miko. She also asks Shiori to keep it a secret because Miko is precious to her and she doesn't want to hurt her feelings

Shiori kills a centipede monster that's after Hinako, and while disposing of the body, Miko spots her and comments on it. Wait... Human's aren't supposed to see them...

Miko says she'll help clean it up, and Shiori realizes Miko's been protecting Hinako this entire time. She also knew Shiori was a monster on sight, while Shiori didn't clock her as a monster until now. She threatens Shiori if she dares to hurt Hinako.

Shiori breaks into school files to learn more about Miko, while Miko and Hinako go on a date hang out at a dessert cafe. She then confronts them on their way home. She reveals that legally, Miko doesn't exist and Hinako's memories of her may be fake. Still, Hinako doesn't leave her side.

Miko explodes into monster form: a giant, swirling, divine, monstrous, multi-tailed fox. She tells Hinako to stand in safety while she and Shiori attempt to tear each other to shreads

Shiori taunts that Miko seems to have not eaten a human in a long time and is starving. Hinako gets a small cut, and Miko freezes, reverts to human form, and forces her bloodlust off. Her frequent absences and illnesses are because she's starving and trying to resist eating Hinako. Shiori taunts that that must be sooooo hard so she'll take over the responsibility of protecting her from here, you're welcome :)

Miko says no. She name drops all of Shiori's family and says she must keep her promise. Shiori remembers... there was a minor shrine and diety her family would pray to, including before their ill fated trip: Okitsune-sama.