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™!

E’S Volume Two continues to follow Kai Kudou’s struggle with his loyalties and his heart.

plot summary

Kai is both captive and guest of the Tokagawa. Yuuki doesn’t fully trust Kai since Kai is a member of Ashurum’s psychic military force. However, Yuuki does have a soft spot for orphans and he makes sure that Kai has good medical care and is comfortable as he convalesces.

Asuka is quite taken with Kai and does everything she can to make Kai feel at home. But Kai just wants to return to Ashurum and Asuka, sensing his unhappiness, helps him “escape” to a train station.

Ashurum, though, wants Kai back in a serious way and sends a deadly cyborg to collect their wayward charge and to eliminate all witnesses of Kai’s powers. Yuuki suddenly finds himself protecting a conflicted Kai and Kai finds himself questioning his loyalties to Ashurum.

Kai’s powers, all the while, are becoming unstable and dangerous. Will he be able to regain control of that which makes him valuable to Ashurum and dangerous to Asuka?

review

Kai is portrayed as a conflicted and confused in Volume Two, and rightly so. He watches in horror as the murderer sent to bring him home “cleans up” all traces of Kai’s stay in Gald. Kai’s naievite is slowly being replaced by a resolve to turn against the place that reared him and succored him his entire life.

Kai’s idealism is also highlighted in Volume Two when he questions the way Yuuki earns money in order to support Asuka and the other orphans in Gald. However, Kai begins to learn that the world doesn’t always go the way we want it to, how we want it to.

The character development was strong throughout the manga, and there was plenty of angsty soul-searching as well. Asuka is given more depth, but she’s developing in a moe direction. Whether or not she’ll reach an intolerable level of moe and become annoying is too soon to tell. For now she’s hovering on the line between naive and innocent and moe and distracting.

The mangaka, Satol Yuiga, used large quantities of black for this volume, similarly to Volume One. The overall effect is one that’s oppressive and dark. It suits the manga but gives it a heavy feel, despite the detailed line work. Thankfully, even with all the black and dark gradients, the pages don’t scan as “muddy”.

Yuiga did a great job with the character designs; treating the characters like movie characters and giving them multiple and creative wardrobe changes. The details and diversity in the clothing are extra which add to already exceptional artwork. Yuuki’s sweater in Chapter 10, however, is a massive fashion faux pas.

Bonuses abound in the back of Volume Two and include Yuiga’s “Aftertalk Manga“, a mini panel manga, correlation charts, terminology page, and a preview for Volume Three.

E’S, Volume Two was chock full of emotional moments and non-stop action. There was only one, maybe two, “Uh-oh” moments in the manga. All I’ll say is that it involved Yuuki, Kai, and a red dress.

Rating

E’S, Volume Two gets 3.5 outta 4 gummies!

plot summary

War has struck the world as a whole for one last time. After this cataclysmic event, many governments simply disappeared, therein making another world war an impossibility. However, small wars among the now impoverished countries broke out from time to time due to instability. It was during this period of unrest that beings were born of humans who were not human themselves.

These creatures, called E’s, have phenomenal psychic abilities, but are turned upon by their human brethren when they manifest their powers.

Ashurum, a secretive quasi-military organization, houses and protects many disenfranchised and abused E’s. Among these is Kai Kudou; an idealistic young man who was raised, along with his sister, Hikaru, in Ashurum.

Kai and his Psychic Military Group Teammates, use their powers to capture rogue psychics for Ashurum. One night, the team is dispatched to the supposedly abandoned city of Gald to “save” psychics from being misused as weapons by a guerrilla group.

Things go terribly wrong, though, as Kai attempts to the right thing, only to be set upon by his own teammate, Shen-Long!

When Kai is left for dead, he’s saved by Asuka Tokugawa and her brother, Yuuki; a mercenary “handyman” who distrusts Kai and Ashurum. Asuka, on the other hand, is very glad to meet Kai.

review

There’s nothing new about post-apocalyptic angsty teenagers with mind-boggling powers. E’S is different from other PAT-MBP in that it fleshes out each character and focuses on their interactions more than their mind-boggling powers. The by-play between Kai and his psychotic, sister-obsessed teammate cum nemesis, Shung-Long, lays the ground work for the battle which will set Kai change him forever.

There is plenty of action in E’S, though. Enough, in fact, to soothe any blood lust that might crop up if “plot” and “development” become too burdensome for some distraction-prone readers. The geysers of blood and rampant psychic-induced explosions more than balance out the emotional scenes in which Kai searches his soul.

There’s something innately compelling about E’S which can be described in two words: character development. Right at the outset we see exactly what kind of person Kai is; a kind, caring, compassionate man willing to put himself in danger for his fellow E’s. His pacifism is naive and endearing simultaneously, and I shudder to think the hard lessons the outside world will school him in.

While this up front delivery of Kai’s temperament and personality may seem sudden, it leaves room for more character development further into the series; and I really do believe Kai will change profoundly given his naive personality. Kai is too much of an innocent to be left alone too long to his own devices and still be an innocent. When Kai’s in the safety of Ashrum, he let’s those in power do the thinking for him. On his own in Gald, however, Kai begins to lose both innocence and the inability to make his own decisions. Will Kai be able to choose his loyalties wisely and objectively?

The mangaka, Satol Yuiga, used a heavy touch and many details to achieve the look for E’S. The lines are super crisp, the shading is subtle and not overwhelming, and the images come across as clean and clear. Each page is brimming with fantastic hyper-detailed imagery which spills off the edges.

Why the Japanese adore German uniforms as much as they do is a question that should be explored in depth on this site. Suffice to say right now that Yuiga must really dig German duds. The character designs for the Ashurum Psychic Military Group Team are very militaristic and imposing; right down to the disturbing armband. The flowing trench coat Kai wears on the cover of the manga and his uniform’s sharp lapels are taken right from World War II, and isn’t that Deutsch wording behind our man?

The rest of the designs for other major characters are thoughtful. As their names imply, the twins Shen-Long and his sister, Shen-Li, are Chinese and their designs reflect that, but why they have blond hair is beyond me.

Yuiga uses many familiar manga devices throughout the volume. The ever present sweat drop is also in good company with the mild use of SD. But I should say my favorite character design in this volume is Asuka’s fat-bottomed kitten at the beginning of Chapter 6- I’m a sucker for a cute cat, but I’m especially a sucker for a chubby cute cat.

Broccoli, the US publisher of E’S, released these volumes as “Deluxe”, and the manga lives up to the name. The cover is quality paper with a satin finish which soaks up the colors and makes the imagery pop. The pages are also of quality paper which, in turn, lends itself to better image quality. At the back of Volume One is a short after-manga insert, along with terminology, a relationship correlation chart and “Asuka’s Guide to Gald”.

E’S, Volume One is an old idea with a new focus and promises to rise above its predecessors.

E’S, Volume One gets out of a possible five Kasugai Gummies.