Illusions are all around us in our daily lives, and what might seem benign in one light may be malevolent in actuality. It’s sometimes hard to tell friend from foe and our eyes can deceive us when we need to see the truth the most. And it’s always good policy, living as we do in illusions, to never judge a book by its cover…

plot summary

Things are heating up-literally- at the Tokagawa residence. Maria has come to ask for Asuka’s help when Maria’s fellow rebel psychic, Maxim, turns up the heat in a fight to win Asuka.

Maxim, like Maria, has been ordered to secure Asuka at any cost, but unlike Maria, Maxim’s willing to pay whatever price necessary to obtain Asuka’s powers.

Kai is still the prisoner of the corrupt priest, Lord Ghibelline, who has trapped the psychic in his underground church. Kai has agreed to be the priest’s “guest” in order to protect the other young psychics Ghibelline is also housing. Lord Ghibelline reveals to Kai the nature of the Sacrament of Calvarias and wants Kai to retrieve it for him.

Things at Ashurum are just as intense as Shen-Long discovers his beloved sister, Shin-Lu, is not quite herself of late. Not just that, but Shen-Long has three new teammates to contend with- new teammates who don’t like to play together…

review

Volume Four was much better than the previous volume. It had more action, more twists and more interest than Three and introduced three new characters to the E’S cast: Maxim, Sherry, and Kyo.

However, Asuka is becoming more moe with each passing volume; either that or she’s getting dumber. (Moe, dumb, same thing?) Either way, her clueless-ness has crossed the line from slightly obnoxious, to irritating.

I prefer female characters to be internally strong with what I call human moments, i.e. they can get weepy when a situation warrants it. Asuka, while being a sweet innocent child has been crafted to be too strongly moe. There’s a fine line between naive and innocent and just plain dumb; a fine, fine line. Hopefully, Asuka will be tempered in her moe-ness with the advent of her alleged power.

I had a strong visceral reaction to Maxim when he was introduced. The guy creeps me out- a lot. The way he’s drawn; his snide, sexist comments: “If you always act so tough, you’ll never find yourself a husband,”; his mannerisms; everything about this guy makes my skin crawl. All I have to say is if this guy were real, I’d make damn sure I wasn’t alone with him in a room, or a building, or a city, or a country. He’s just slimy and he has some hidden agenda.

Kai is just so mixed up in his ideals, it’s painful to watch. His intentions are pure, but, wow, bad decisions seem to be all this kid can make. Ideals sure can be brutal when they’re not mixed with reality and tempered with experience. Time will tell if what seems like a bad decision on Kai’s part isn’t actually a well-plotted plan…

Yuuki is my fave character thus far in E’S since he has ideals (helping orphans and making Gald a better place for them) but he also recognizes the reality of situations (working for gangsters to make money may be necessary to make ends meet) and he has experience (being a gun-for-hire). Asuka is too moe, Kai is too idealistic, Maxim is too creepy, Maria is too shallow,and Shen-Long is too crazy for me to connect with on any but a sympathetic level. I empathize with Yuuki and that makes him memorable to me.

Volume Four has as many extras as the previous volumes but there’s a new addition in the way of Yuiga’s “Saint Ashurum’s Academy Dairies“. I had a good laugh over this extra, but the truly funny thing is that if the “story” for it was developed into a full-blown manga, girls would be pushing each other down to buy it first.

The end of E’S, Volume Four has me wanting more, more, more, and has renewed my interest in the series, which was lagging after Volume Three. The series has been building up the angst and action and Volume Five promises to have even more angst and more action than Four!

Rating

E’s Volume Four gets 3 outta 4 Kasugai™ gummies!

Volume Three of E’S shows Kai can fight when he wants to, Yuuki has a soft side-only for orphans – and Asuka really is clueless and beginning to go over to the Moe Side.

plot summary

Kai’s powers have turned against him and he finds himself captive again; this time his jailer is a priest! Wanting to harness Kai’s psychic abilities, Lord Ghibelline confines the young man in the Church’s subterranean headquarters. Kai discovers that he’s not the only psychic in the crooked priest’s grasp, and Kai’s natural compassion compels him to lend them a hand; no matter the cost to himself.

Yuuki, who’s been hired by the local rebels to find a mysterious artifact, is told by the information broker, Leonid, that the very group Yuuki was hired to help has placed bounty on his head. Maria, the granddaughter of the rebel’s leader, demands that Yuuki hand over the psychic in his care; the one with the honey blond hair.

Now Yuuki must unravel the mystery of Kai’s disappearance, the bounty on his head and Maria’s interest with Asuka.

review

Volume Three was disappointingly short. Just when things were getting interesting, the volume ended. One half of the manga was dedicated to a prototype preview of E’S, while the other was the regularly scheduled manga.

Granted, the half of the manga that was Volume Three of E’S was entertaining, and granted the preview manga to E’s was interesting, I still feel kinda cheated. Also, I was disappointed at seeing Kai as a victim, yet again. The boy got no respect at Ashurum from his fellow psychics, he was almost blown to oblivion by a teammate, Yuuki held him “prisoner”, Ashurum sent a psycho mass murder to bring him back, and now he’s the powerless captive of a corrupt priest. Hopefully this is all part of an equation which will make Kai omnipotent, or at least something close. The angst in this manga was on full-throttle and I really wanted to see a pay-off for the investment of having to relive teenage emotions.

The action was toned down for Volume Three, but it wasn’t missed. The action that did take place wasn’t as gratuitous- not necessarily a bad thing- as in previous volumes and furthered the story.

Volume Three’s art wasn’t as dark as One and Two and came as a reprieve from the oppressiveness of the former volumes. The art is still strong in Three but more open and light.

One of the extras for this volume is the aforementioned preview manga: “Prelude to Destruction“, Parts 1 & 2. Yuiga drew this short manga as a prototype/preview for the actual storyline of E’S. Many film producers and novelists will do a short prototype of their work to either pitch the piece to a studio or editor, or to get a feel of the direction their work will go. Yuiga didn’t take E’S in the direction her preview manga went, but she kept the tone of the E’S preview world the same for the current manga as she did in Prelude to Destruction.

The extras which were in the former manga are in Volume Three as well, along with a section which compares and contrasts the differences between Prelude to Destruction and the current E’S.

While I appreciated the opportunity to read Yuiga’s original take on E’S, I didn’t appreciate that Volume Three was so short. Aside from my disappointment with the brevity of the manga, I was also miffed by Kai’s poor luck/ weakness. I hope Volume Four can cash the check the previous volumes have written in terms of emotional investment.

Rating

Volume Three of E’S gets 2.5 outta 4 Kasugai Gummies™!