Fire Emblem: Sword of the Conqueror (2005)

[ファイアーエムブレム 覇者の剣]

Volume 9

Author: Hiroshi Izawa
Artist: Kotaro Yamada
Publisher: Jump Comics

Synopsis:
Al returns home to uncover the truth about his origins.

Story/Characters:
We finally get a full reveal of Al's past and I have to say that if you find him to be a bit Stuish of a character, this is going to make it much worse for you. It's interesting, yes, but in some ways it makes things too ideal. (I will at least give Izawa credit that it doesn't all come up roses for Al, so there's some balance and conflict.)

The invasion of Bern features some epic-scale fighting and callbacks to earlier parts in the story. Zeed rounds out his character arc and a whole lot of effort gets thrown into fighting Murdock.

Art:
The art is quite good this volume. We get some rather impressive panels for the big battle scenes and the major emotional beats. Yamada's work was solid from the start, but he's definitely been getting better over the course of this series.

Other:
We get a character sheet for Murdock and Niime, fanart, the Q&A column, the afterword comic, and illustrations of Tana and Joshua from FE8 (though much smaller than the usual bonus illustrations).

Conclusion:
If you like big reveals and big battles, this is the volume for you. It really is one of the better ones in the series. Give it a read.

Rating:
Read It