Title: Queen’s Quality Vol. 15
Author: Kyousuke Motomi
Publisher: Viz Media
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 168
Genre: Sci-Fi, Romance
Publication Date: September 6, 2022
The Story
Volume 15 of Queen’s Quality sets us up for a major showdown between the Genbu and the Suzaku. Before we get to that, there needs to be a bit of setup.
We open up the volume with Kyutaro trying his best to resist feeding on Fumi. Fumi says that she has a plan and lets Kyutaro feed. While he does so, she “enters” his mind space and meets the snake. There, the snake talks about what will become of Kyutaro if he continues down that path. After freeing Kyutaro from his mental bindings, they return to reality where the feeding is complete and he has lost some minor memories. Everyone at the Genbu realizes that this will continue until there is nothing of him left because Kyutaro refuses to “eat” any of the people he turned into sacrifices as part of his deal with the snake.
Shortly after, Ataru is released from the hospital but he’s confronted by Tsubasa of the Suzaku. Previously, Tsubasa and Inoue held a conversation where Inoue said that he wished to gain the upper hand by taking control of The Casket… the item that all the snakes are fighting over. In short, whichever snake ends up being the final one can enter the casket and make their wish come true. Holding that power, Inoue believes he will have the upper hand to fuel his own desires vs walking down the path while blindly following Yanagi.
Tsubasa ends up talking to Ataru and this leads to luring Fumi and Kyutaro out. In an odd twist, Tsubasa asks them for help with Inoue but, in the end, it wasn’t needed as Inoue ended up invading the place where the casket was held…. The Byakko Village. They requested the Genbu’s help as Inoue begins his assault; however, a twist at the end shows a major miscalculation!
Characters
While the focus was placed on Yanagi and K in the previous volume, here, we are looking at Tsubasa and Inoue. It appears that the two of them are going rogue within the Suzaku. With Inoue telling Tsubasa about his plans, it’s obvious that he doesn’t care what happens. He’s pretty sure that he’s going to succeed so no amount of interference is enough to stop him. While it’s clear that his goal is leveraging power with Yanagi and K, the true end goal for Inoue has yet to be revealed.
As for Tsubasa, he doesn’t seem like he’s super loyal to either Yanagi or K but he’s also not willing to let Inoue have his way because he has a good idea of what his true goals are. Tsubasa is in it for himself, no doubt, but he’s simply playing the right cards to put himself into a position where he can benefit from everything.
Kyutaro losing his memories is quite sad; however, the Genbu is trying to come up with a way to fight the Suzaku Clan, eliminate the snakes, save themselves as sacrifices, and not exhaust Kyutaro’s memories. That’s a pretty tall order but even though Kyutaro is aware of everything that’s happening, he’s trying his best to keep a positive outlook. He even admits that he’s not trying to put on a brave face but he’s simply trying to listen to his snake’s words about looking at every inch of his own being and coming to understand who he truly is… to discover what his “self” is. It is a bit cryptic but perhaps a revelation will help them all in the end.
Overall Thoughts
With Inoue and Tsubasa’s dissension, this has taken a bit of a turn that I wasn’t expecting. I was thinking it would be an all-out battle but that doesn’t seem to be the case. It looks as if we’re going to get fragments of a bigger whole with each fragment having its own focus. Right now, it’s starting with Inoue and The Casket. They played it off that Byakko Village will be the stage for war but it’s just for this section. If/when Inoue is taken down, where does that leave Tsubasa? What moves are Yanagi and K going to make?
There are still a lot of directions this could go but it’s easy to predict that Inoue will either die in his search for The Casket or fail and head back and be killed for his betrayal of the Suzaku Clan. Or… the major plot twist is that he succeeds and ends up becoming the “final boss” of this story! That last path would surprise me as it would come from out of left field and kind of marginalize all of the build-ups they did for Yanagi and K in the last volume.
Either way, it was a nice twist that I didn’t see coming and I’m excited to see where this story goes!
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This item was provided for review by VIZ Media
