Guided by the elder’s letter, Hinowa and her allies head to meet a man named Rugyou, who could serve as Wakoku’s strategist. Finding him isn’t too much trouble, but convincing him is. Even if he agrees to join, Hinowa’s group is about to lose a powerful ally.
Hinowa ga CRUSH! has set up a clear mission: recruit three men known as sages, and then let their wisdom help lead to Tenrou’s downfall and Wakoku’s safety. Meanwhile, others are fighting against Tenrou in their own ways, hoping to bring down the country from within. And finally, Akame has her own personal mission with both trying to stop her curse and an unexpected encounter with someone from her past.
While Hinowa ga CRUSH! has been an blood-filled and sexually explicit series, volume 7 is rather calm. The first half focuses on Hinowa meeting Rugyou and his brother, the self-proclaimed genius Mekira. Neither cruelly dismiss Hinowa’s group, but Rugyou currently wishes to live as a writer, having stepped away from political affairs. But Hinowa doesn’t give up easily, especially when his words both spoken and written stir her heart.
Then, the manga turns into a direct sequel to Akame ga KILL! Zero, as the now-departed Akame reunites with the amnesiac Nahashu. This brief respite then gives way to Hinowa’s next mission as she discovers more suffering countries while hunting for a way to meet the second sage.
All of this suggests volume 7 is more of an in-between volume, with the ending primed for the next big fight in Hinowa’s personal journey. Not the big fight against Tenrou, of course. But that’s the problem: while not stated in the next volume preview, Hinowa ga CRUSH! will end with volume 8. That means it’s impossible for the manga to capitalize on all the parts volume 7 so firmly establishes, from the remaining Ten Stars to finding the second and third sages to serving as an end to Hinowa’s tale, let alone Akame’s. The Akame ga KILL! universe has featured author TAKAHIRO teaming up with three different artists, and his latest work (not affiliated with this metaseries) has him reuniting with Zero‘s artist. So there’s certainly nothing stopping the possibility of a Hinowa ga CRUSH! continuation, whether as a part 2 or a completely new story in the world focusing on a different protagonist and/or country.
However, right now, anyone picking this up is just going to see a lot of wasted story potential. It’s clear the manga got axed (even without the artist saying so), as otherwise there’s no reason for the creators to have spent so much time on persuading Rugyou — or even introducing the idea of meeting the three sages. I tend to be the type to avoid revealing spoilers, and yes, it’s a little unfair for me to judge volume 7 so harshly for a situation it couldn’t control. I like what we see of Rugyou and Mekira, and in between Mekira’s self-bragging and the townspeople all swooning over Rugyou, it’s clear they had a lot of potential to have deeper character arcs. Plus, they bring with them Komatsu, an adorable bear freak who serves as their guardian.
But ultimately, Hinowa ga CRUSH!‘s untimely penultimate volume seems destined to only serve as a mini-sequel to Zero and reference material for fanfiction writers. I don’t know if the final chapters will speedrun through all of the various story plots or just abandon a bunch of them, but either way, it’s clear from this volume there’s too much going on between a multi-nation war and cursed weapons for readers to be satisfied with the upcoming conclusion.