Title: Bloody Mary Vol. 6
Author: Akaza Samamiya
Publisher: Viz Media
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 168
Genre: Fantasy, Yaoi
Publication Date: March 7, 2017
The Story
In Volume 6 of Bloody Mary, Maria vows to help Mary find his memories, with some resistance from Mary. This leads to a pretty big character development volume that answers a few questions we had at the end of volume five. Lily’s grandfather returns from his toilet research excursion in the southern hemisphere and takes charge right away. Lily’s grandfather even offers up information on how Maria can restore the power of exorcism and unveils the grim fact that the Di Maria family are linked to the red-haired vampires in a way where members of the Di Maria family have been, historically, killed by red-haired vampires.
The volume ends with Maria returning to Japan to unlock the power of his exorcism, although the task before him is great because it involves waking Master Yzak from his coma.
A rather short synopsis because there really wasn’t much story to talk about in this volume. There was a bigger emphasis on character development as we got to look more into Mary’s past. So let’s skip over to that section and cover the bulk of this volume.
Characters
Mary’s development is pretty significant, but this volume of Bloody Mary does pull back on the reigns a bit and just gives a healthy-sized bite out of the pie, but not enough to let us have our fill of what is going on. Mary’s memories begin to resurface and he remembers the fact that he was a twin. Mary and his brother went into the forest one day off of a rumor that there is a place with vampires in it and if you enter, you don’t return. Mary and his brother got separated and when Mary returned, his brother seemed a bit different. That was the last thing he remembers clearly about his brother, but it’s apparent that there is so much more to it.
Mary’s dual personality made a pact with Maria, though, which was the whole reason for this volume of Bloody Mary focusing heavily on recovering Mary’s memories. Mary’s alter ego wanted the memories to be recovered and for Maria to seek “him” out once they were. In exchange, Mary’s alter ego promised to tell Maria what his father’s final words were. This was enough to lure Maria into helping Mary recover his lost memories.
The other half of Mary’s development was told through Hydra who held a pretty messed up event. She had a castle decorated form head to toe all so she could burn it to the ground. It wasn’t just some pyromaniac’s wish, though. She was saying goodbye to someone in the form of a skeleton with red hair. It is now painfully clear that Hydra was in love with “Mary.” Mary is, indeed, dead but Hyrda isn’t too worried about it because the current Mary will soon turn into the Mary she knew and loved. Given the fact from the last volume that vampires can turn humans into vampires under rare circumstances, it’s pretty easy to piece everything together from here on out. All we need is future volumes to put it in official writing.
Final Thoughts
Another big character development volume for Bloody Mary and we get some progress with Maria as well. Maria seeking the power of exorcism seemed like a daunting task and after the cliffhanger at the end of the volume, that task may just be even bigger.
I’m really enjoying Mary’s development and I like how Samamiya-san is developing the character from two different perspectives. While that approach is tricky because it’s hard to keep things a mystery, I believe that the author is handling it exceptionally well. While Bloody’s past is becoming clearer and clearer and even though you can piece it together for yourself, you’re still wanting to see the details written out so you can be sure that you were correct all along. It’s a nice hook, that’s for sure!
We also got our first taste of Yaoi in this episode, but it wasn’t how you would think it would be. Mary was about to fall asleep and Maria knew that if he did, the other Mary could come out. So to prevent him from falling asleep, Maria fed Mary some of his blood, but Mary wasn’t exactly accepting it willingly, so Maria put the blood into his mouth and “kiss fed” it to Mary. While it’s no different than giving a person air via CPR, it was still our first true Yaoi moment and even still, it wasn’t that bad. As long as the prize for saving Mary in the end isn’t a full on love fest, I think I can handle this just fine!
All in all, another good edition that’s keeping me interested in this story!
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This item was provided for review by Viz Media
