Canon Vol 3

[meganbmoore]

 In the author’s afterword, Chika Shiomi says she used to write for shonen magazines before switching over to shojo with Canon and onward. This explains much.

 

Chika Shiomi continues to prove that, no matter how messed up something is, if it’s done well enough, I can be persuaded to go for it.

Let’s observe:

1. Ten years ago, Rod the Vampire Lord is sent to punish his best friend, Ricardo, who betrayed the vampires, by murdering his human wife and son and torturing Ricardo to death. In the woods, a little girl-Canon-comes across the massacre. Ricardo protects her from Rod, dying in the process. Seeing that his friend was willing to give up his own life for the human, Rod uses his own life force to cure her of a deadly illness. Ricardo’s son, Sakaki, witnesses this, despite being pinned to a rock or something with a spike shoved through his chest.
2. Sakaki lives because of his vampire blood, and watches the girl, seeing that Rod returns again and again to give her more life force to ward off the illness. Sakaki intelligently deduces that Rod would probably have some issues killing her. Canon doesn’t know about any of this.
3. Sakaki kills Canon’s class and turns Canon herself into a vampires, then uses his hypnosis to convince her that it was Rod who did the killing and turning so that she’ll try to kill Rod.
4. Later, Sakaki introduces himself as a fellow enemy of Rod’s, they join forces and fall in love. Both think it’s an amazingly bad idea even though only one knows why it’s a bad idea.
5. Canon learns the truth.

Yes, OTP from hell. Thank you for making sure we have no doubts about that, Chika Shiomi.

Meanwhile, Sakaki isn’t made soft and gushy by loving Canon, and doesn’t make allowances for it. Loving some girl doesn’t erase 10 years of hatred and planning. He loves Canon, even more the he wants to kill Rod, but he sticks to his plan. Canon doesn’t waste time fretting about loving Sakaki or wondering if she can change him. She goes from a girl needing revenge to a girl caught between two factions trying to kill each other, with neither worrying much about the innocents. She doesn’t have time to fret much about being bettrayed or whether or not she still loves Sakaki. She does, but doesn’t let it stop her from doing what needs to be done.

The story here was mostly revelations, both on Rod and Sakaki’s parts, with Canon doing her best to catch up and deal with things in between when people weren’t trying to manipulate and/or kill her. And, despite the amazing messed-up-ness(in the good way) of the plot, it all works.

Even if I can’t imagine it ending any way but with most players dead…