Call of the Night (2022)

[よふかしのうた]

Volume 11

Author/Artist: Kotoyama
Publisher: Shounen Sunday Comics

Synopsis:
Kou tries talking to Mahiru to learn more about Kiku, but his friend has changed since the last time they saw each other.

Story/Characters:
We open on a montage of Kiku's love 'em and leave 'em ways, which bodes ill for dear Mahiru, and we have Uguisu talking about an encounter she had with an uncharacteristically deranged Kiku in the course of her hunt. Nazuna checks Kou's resolve, as helping Uguisu is going to put him at odds with his friend, but Kou's going to go for the diplomatic solution. When Kou meets Mahiru, we see his appearance has changed and there's a strong creepy vibe that you're not quite sure is a fakeout or not, until Mahiru removes the element of doubt by beating the snot out of Kou. Kou takes it for a while, until he decides he needs to get a hit in himself, but Nazuna stops him as his pseudo-vampire abilities have kicked in again and he very likely would've killed Mahiru if he followed through. The realization hits Kou hard, but as if that's not enough, Mahiru continues to snap at him with all his misplaced envy, (figuratively) kicking our boy while he's down. Kou ends up retreating into his shell after that, so Nazuna brings Uguisu and Nico together to discuss the problem. Uguisu and Nico have to clear the air between them first (that whole shooting Nico in the head thing has to be addressed). Nazuna gets the light bulb moment to enlist Akira's help as a go-between. For some reason, Nazuna takes Akira to Midori's maid cafe and even goes so far as to dress her up (much to the delight of the patrons). I suppose you could say the maid outfit serves to snap Kou out of his funk, so it wasn't just for fanservice (though that's clearly 99% of the reason). She succeeds in getting Kou to the point where he's willing to try patching things up with Mahiru.

Next, we have Kou asking Nazuna to help him control his powers while Akira talks to Uguisu about Mahiru. When Nazuna tries feeding on him and Kou sees his own blood, a change comes over him, his conscious mind retreats and whatever's left in the driver's seat starts attacking Nazuna. We learn from Akira that Mahiru had a brother and his personality changed dramatically after said brother passed, which we can infer to mean that he changed to compensate for his brother's loss and the strain of the facade has brought him to his current state. While Kou's body is fighting Nazuna, in his subconscious he's hashing out some of the emotions he hadn't properly dealt with. As his emotional state is the trigger for his powers, properly facing his emotions serves to help bring him back under control. Also, good thing Nazuna is a vampire or their dustup would've ended poorly. Instead we get a nice little cooldown hug.

We close on Uguisu impersonating a police officer to pay a visit to Mahiru's house, only for his mother to reveal he hasn't been home. Now, I don't know if dear old Mumsy is just good about keeping up appearances or if the absence of her son is not a big deal to her (which would indicate some more unpleasant things going on behind the scenes to further explain Mahiru's sub-optimal situation). The way Uguisu looks shaken afterward inclines me to believe the latter more than the former.

Art:
The imagery with Kiku is interesting, juxtaposing surges of emotion with the coldness as she leaves her paramours. Sinister Mahiru leaves quite an impression, but so does Kou when he turns. We get a nice counterbalance with maid Akira (and cop Uguisu for that matter). There's a good action set piece in the Kou vs. Nazuna fight.

Other:
We get an afterword from Kotoyama talking about how the story is taking a bit of a life of its own, along with a little illustration of post-beatdown Kou.

Conclusion:
I won't say I had doubts about this new arc of the story, but I was curious at how we would reach the same emotional heights of the conflict with Uguisu. Pitting Kou against Mahiru with Akira caught in the middle will do the trick, I imagine. There are a lot of question marks floating around Kiku, so that's something else to keep us going. If you thought the climax has already passed, I think you'll be happy to see we've got at least one more round to go. You'll want this one for your collection.

Rating:
Own It