The climatic, pitched battle between a murderous, girl loving super mercenary and a hawkish, morose and rich old man in a normal series would end with one of these people either getting shot or stabbed in the stomach.
In Murciélago the battle is over when a dumb little girl runs over the old man in his wheelchair with a boat.
Murciélago Volume 2 picks off where Volume 1 left off, which is Kuroko and a number of murderers getting murdered by a vengeance driven old man. With a number of killing traps at his disposal and a powerful maid with a big secret, can Kuroko survive the mansion of horrors? Or will she instead do what shouldn’t and try to seduce said powerful maid? And is Hinako gonna reach the party in time?
Unlike Volume 1, this edition of Murciélago attempts to make time to try and address the rising number of cases that the police can’t or won’t handle. In this case, it’s too long and the way they spoke felt unnecessary. As far as I know they’ve introduced characters that look important, but aside from Tougo and Kimihara I don’t really care about the others right now. Maybe if it was shorter it might have been better, but it didn’t feel all too interesting.
There’s also some concern regarding what Kuroko can and cannot do. One involves how powerful she is, and the other is her creeping on little girls. Yes, it’s definitely an issue when she teases Hinako, but in this volume they introduce a kid and she’s totally creeping on her. Needless to say that can be a big issue that can take away from Kuroko’s character, even when the manga does the classic comedy scene where she is stopped by someone else before something bad happens.
But just like Volume 1, Volume 2 is pretty fun, with what actually happens (I already mentioned the boat scene) to the cast of characters in it. For example three killers that end up surviving the initial slaughter in the mansion turn out to be pretty neat even if it was just for this arc, whether it’s because of the one-track mind being put in awful situations or a sniper that’s deadpan in almost every way. Kuroko with her misgivings is still Kuroko, and that comes with her charms and killing intent. Hinako is still Hinako: so young, so naive, and… very much a kid in ways you wouldn’t think.
Accompanying this is the artwork, which continues to be great. From a skeleton designed grim reaper to an aged, hallowed looking old man’s eyeballs popping out of his sockets, to even Kuroko pleasing her tsundere lover Chiyo (no, you don’t get to see the pleasure, but the sounds are enough) WHILE Hinako is in another room, the art remains top-notch.
There is definitely a few things that you have to overcome in order to actually enjoy this manga, but Murciélago does enough to be great that it outweighs its lows, and if you haven’t checked it out yet, you should now.