Title: Rokka: Braves of the Six Flowers Vol. 2
Author: Kei Toru (Art), Ishio Yamagata (Story), Miyagi (Character Art)
Publisher: Yen Press
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 176
Genre: Shonen, Mystery, Fantasy
Publication Date: May 23, 2017
The Story
My review of volume one of Rokka: Braves of the Six Flowers spoke a little too soon. I was a bit miffed about the manga skipping over Adlet’s introduction, how he became a brave, etc. I felt that volume one was rushing things along at breakneck speed, but in reality, Volume two of Rokka rectifies all that by having Adlet and Nashetania recall that part of the story through flashbacks. At the same time, the story moved forward with everyone suspecting Adlet to be the seventh brave.
Due to the flashbacks, there was a tremendous amount of character development to be had here, but the story itself was pretty straight-forward. In the last volume, Adlet was suspected of being the seventh fake brave and was attacked by the others. Hans impaled him, but he managed to escape and hid along with Fremy. Here, we see that Fremy tended to Adlet’s wound, thus saving him. She is 99% sure that he is the fake, but it’s that 1% that caused her to treat him, just in the off chance he really wasn’t the fake.
Fremy headed back to the temple as Adlet decided to rest up and head back the next day, hoping that he could find out who the seventh, and possibly the eighth could be. When he gets close, he was attacked by Hans and the two of them battle each other. Adlet causes Hans to become afraid after a bluff and misses a fatal blow on purpose. Hans bluffs by telling Adlet he’s the seventh and looks to cut his head off, but in reality, he only scratched him and made Adlet believe he had just been killed. Hans read Adlet’s eyes at the “moment of death” and was convinced that Adlet was NOT the seventh! Hans and Adlet now team up to try and figure out who the true seventh is. While they were searching for clues, Chamo shows up and attacks them both.
Chamo believes that if she just kills everyone then the seventh will be dead and she can kill the evil God all by herself! The volume ends with Hans and Adlet battling Chamo, who reveals her power!
Since I am, typically, an anime viewer first and a manga reader second, I didn’t realize that it was the anime that adapted the chapters out of order. The light novel came out first, then there was a manga adaptation of the light novel (which is what this review is based off of) and then there was an anime adaptation in 2015. Then again, I could be wrong and maybe the light novel and the anime were adapted correctly and the manga took liberties. I don’t know either way, but what I do know is all of the story is there now, even if it was in a different order.
Characters
Fremy and Adlet received some in-depth backstory in this volume as a result of the flashbacks that I thought were skipped over in volume one.
Adlet’s introduction came when he interrupted a tournament to consider who a new brave could be. He was tossed in jail due to his interference and it was there where he was chosen as one of the braves. Nashetania is tied into Adlet’s past as she was the one who came to visit him in prison and, later, rescued him. If that wasn’t enough, then Adlet got even more backstory through another flashback while talking with Fremy. It showed Adlet as a young kid and being taken in by his master. It showed how he trained and how he became known as “The Strongest Man in the World.” Suddenly, a lot of things about Adlet began to make sense in this volume and I’m happy his character got fleshed out! Had the manga actually skipped all of this, I would have been left wondering just how they would go about building up his character. Thankfully, all of those fears are put to rest. In my anime review, I called Adlet a breath of fresh air when it came to main characters. He broke free from a lot of the typical tropes and I hope with this backstory, you can come to appreciate that as well!
Fremy’s backstory was extended some in this volume. We knew that she was a demon from the previous volume, but now we know that she was raised by demons and sent out to kill as many as possible. She thought that this was the only way of life for her. She was bestowed the power of the Saint of Gunpowder and decided to challenge Chamo one day. Fremy lost and returned home only to be nearly killed by her parents for her failure. With nowhere to go, Fremy wandered the land waiting for the opportunity to get her revenge. With a backstory like that, it’s easy to see why Fremy has a hard time trusting people, but it seems Adlet convinced her just enough to the point where she trusts him…. Kind of. The volume didn’t come right out and say that she trusted him, but her actions spoke about how she truly feels on the inside. You can see Fremy’s shell cracking ever-so-slowly and it makes you wonder if the two of them will end up together in the end.
Final Thoughts
There was a lot of information to be had in this volume of Rokka, but it was quite necessary. With Adlet’s backstory fully explained, it puts a lot of pieces of the puzzle back together and more than makes up for the rocky start to the series. The pacing of volume two was much more controlled and everything flowed nicely from page to page. We got a wonderful battle between Adlet and Hans which helped break up the information overload. Everything about this volume seemed balanced in some way.
The ending with Chamo was also a bit out there. Her reasoning for killing everyone and going after the evil God is a sound strategy, but there is the flipside that makes you wonder if she wants to kill everyone because she’s the seventh and by doing so, nobody would be able to stand in her way? There is that possibility and I believe that’s what they are wanting you to believe, but I highly doubt that is going to be the case. All I know is that the next volume of Rokka is going to be packed with action and I’m sure that the battle between Adlet/Hans and Chamo is not going to go unnoticed by the rest of the braves.
Also, anyone else disgusted by the fact that Chamo has a swamp living inside of her? Gross.
After a rocky start, Rokka: Braves of the Six Flowers establishes itself as a highly interesting game of Clue. We are starting to see doubters turn into allies as the mystery is slowly being unraveled bit by bit. It’s safe to say that Hans and Adlet are not the seventh so that leaves five more suspects to clear their names. There’s also the job of convincing the other five (or four if Fremy really does believe Adlet is innocent) that Adlet is also not the seventh. It’s a wonderful hook to keep you guessing and it’s making me want to read volume three right away… even though I did watch the anime. I’m just merely curious if there are any differences between the anime and the manga.
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This item was provided for review by Yen Press
