Spiral: The Bonds of Reasoning Vol 2

[meganbmoore]

I find myself largely in the same "I'm ready for win the anime breaks off" state as with Hoshin Engi.  Good, a little deeper than the anime(and in this case, darker) but mostly familiar ground.  Everything in this volume I've watched several times in anime version, and most of it plays out the same.  Except that the anime was downright cheery in comparison to the manga.

For example, a character who was killed by being pushed off a roof in the anime is killed in the manga by being stabbed to death, with his killer deliberately avoiding all vital organs, until he was ready to kill him.  (Kousuke, I WILL NEVER LOOK AT YOU THE SAME WAY AGAIN!  And you were already a killer...)  It also changes the blade children's "we are destined to die" bit into something more along the lines of "we are destined to kill. "  Which actually makes moresense...everyone dies, not everyone has some sort of genetic destiny that turns them into killers.

Eyes's emo also gets even more sinister and impressive.  Not to mention psychotic.  Observe:  

My earliest memory is from when I was three.  There were these ants.  And as they all marched in a row, I picked them up one by one and crushed them.  For God knows how many hours.  Then it was butterflies, crickets, grasshoppers...I just loved killing them.  When I was five, I strangled out pet husky with wire.  That was when my mom started to realize that something was wrong.  She tried to occupy the hands of her son who desired bloodshed by tying him to the piano day and night.

Yes Eyes, you're psychotic.  We get it.

Then there's:

Bloodshed is our fate...do you understand our fate?  After all...we children are all cursed...

He's also positively cheery about trying to blow people up with bombs shaped like turtles.  Then, of course, Ayumu has even more 'weight of the world...or at least my brother's reputation" angst, and Hiyono, if possible, is even more chipper than in the anime.  (Except I accidentally spoiled myself for the manga, which gives that an entirely different tone than it would have otherwise.)