Despite making the cover, Gabriel’s boss only makes an appearance in the inside cover comics. Which is too bad, as I’d like to see how his attempts to get into social media turned out. I’m guessing not good considering he added a Minstagram page to his menu instead of the Internet.
What exactly did he add? I wish I knew.
Gabriel Dropout continues to feature the titular character and the other angels and demons at her human school learning about human culture. And by learning, I mean continuing to do anything they want. Vigne decides to defend Gabriel from bad luck; Raphael jumps in whenever she senses fun; Taplis is rewarded with an afternoon with Gabriel, whose lack of enthusiasm plus lack of information equals one very confused Taplis.
Far and away, though, the best chapter features Taplis challenging Satanya in an epic, destined duel. The game? Indian poker a.k.a. blind man’s bluff. It’s a very psychological game, one that’s wholly unsuited for two idiots. But Taplis studied under Raphael for this match and leveled up to become, in her own words, “Super-Duper Badass Taplis”. Yet in the face of Satanya’s natural confidence, can she pull out the win?
This whole chapter is a great parody of death game manga/anime that ends all-too-soon. Their second round is skipped for the loser crying about their defeat. While I understand that the end result was to be expected, I think a follow-up chapter with the others doing commentary instead of a narrator would have been hilarious. Since we didn’t see round two, I hope Ukami does another Satanya-Taplis face-off. It’s much better than Gabriel demonstrating her lack of swimming skills — and, being Gabriel, a lack of effort in trying to obtain those swimming skills. Soooo boring, and the only funny part of the punchline is an extra to fill the pages.
The other highlight was Raphael’s chapter. She’s been the most mysterious girl of the bunch, not thrilled with Gabriel’s new life but she herself is also living an unangelic life. After all, she refers to some of the others as her “playthings”. So it was interesting to see how she views the world and learns a bit about herself in the process. It helps ease the pain from the lack of Best Girl Satanya. Shinohara wanting to be friends with Mei or Vigne taking a fortune seriously doesn’t fill the void. Need. More. Satanya.
In short, this volume was okay. I wasn’t bursting out laughing a lot, but I wasn’t bored out of my mind either. For Gabriel Dropout fans, volume 7 has a lot of good points, but I can’t help but wishing that the funniest gags had ran a little longer.