Bloody Mary – Vol. 4 (Manga Series)
April Marie
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Written by Akaza Samamiya
Illustrated by Akaza Samamiya
Published by VIZ Media
Suitable for ages 13+
In most vampiric tales, the creatures are ancient. Hundreds of years of history are all contained in a single being. What would it be like to peel back the years and see the world through those eyes? In Volume Four of Bloody Mary, we get a very small sampling of what that would be like. But surprisingly, we don’t actually look back through the eyes of one of these immortals. In a series about vampires, we see this history through the eyes of humans.
Volume Four of Bloody Mary is almost entirely made up of flashbacks. In the very beginning of the volume, a strange man latches onto “Ichiro” Maria. We find out quickly that the man is Shinobu Yuki, an old friend of Maria’s father Yusei. When Shinobu finds out that Yusei is dead, he’s shocked. He says that should be impossible since Yusei was immortal. Maria is flabbergasted to say the least, but his surprise is doubled when Shinobu reveals that he is Maria’s uncle. Shinobu’s sister is Maria’s mother. Growing up, Maria knew nothing of his mother because his father never talked about her. In this volume of Bloody Mary, we find out why.
Though Volume Four of Bloody Mary is arguably fairly short, we learn a lot about Maria’s past. He and Bloody take a bit of a back seat this time around as we learn about Shinobu, Yusei, Yzak, the Sakurabas, and Maria’s mom Shion Yuki. If you’d rather learn the history by reading the volume yourself, skip down two paragraphs. We don’t feel too bad about revealing it since flashback “filler” volumes are usually pretty boring to read. Here’s the plot of Yusei’s history in a nutshell. One day he is out killing vampires, as an exorcist is want to do, and he runs into Shinobu who has unwittingly wandered into a vampire attack. Yusei saves Shinobu from the vampires, and then agrees to walk Shinobu home. He says he’d like an escort in case vampires attack again, but really it’s because he doesn’t want to confront his sister alone after being out all night. Shion is of course furious when Shinobu turns up after sunrise, but mellows out quickly at the sight of Yusei. It’s then that they discover he was injured during the vampire attack. Shion and Shinobu patch Yusei up, and eventually they all become friends.
Down the line, Yusei and Shion fall in love, with Shinobu playing the happy third wheel. It doesn’t last long though, as Yzak finds out what his son is up to. Through his loyal servants (the Sakuraba family), Yzak has Shion kidnapped. Yusei and Shinobu foil the kidnapping, but it’s then that Yusei decides Shinobu and Shion must leave for their own safety. With Shinobu and Shion far away, he figures they will be safe from the grasp of his father and the Sakurabas. It is not to be however, as Shion becomes pregnant with Yusei’s child, Maria. The Sakurabas kill Shion when Maria is born. They kidnap him, and bring him to his father who previously didn’t even know he existed. This is of course the first time Maria has ever heard any mention of his mother being murdered. On top of that, he had no idea the Sakurabas were the cause.
Yusei’s history SPOILERS OVER! There is one more thing we need to mention about him though that has pretty much already been given away in previous volumes. As it turns out, Yusei is a clone of Yzak, which is what made him immortal. Because Maria is the child of Yusei (an immortal), and Shion (a normal human), he is half-immortal. His wounds heal faster than a normal human’s, and that’s all we know about his “immortality” so far. Maria doesn’t exactly want to test the theory, unlike Bloody who’s constantly throwing himself off buildings and slitting his wrists.
While the vast majority of Bloody Mary Volume Four is taken up by these flashbacks, there are moments in the present. We find out that Maria’s grandfather Yzak is still in a coma after his confrontation with “Mary.” The sidebar comments by the creator reveal that the two Marys have hilariously accurate nicknames behind-the-scenes. Bloody Mary is called masochist Mary, and the other inner Mary is called sadistic Mary. We also learn that a new arc is clearly about to start since the characters all decide to go to England. Their main reason being that Yzak is still in a coma, so they won’t learn more from him any time soon. Maria still wants to learn how to harness the power of exorcism both for himself and Mary. England seems like the best place to do all of the above. And at the very end of this volume of Bloody Mary, we see Hydra return to England and address a figure in a chair by the name “Mary.”
Big revelations are sure to come in the next volume of Bloody Mary as the characters all venture to England! Volume Four of Bloody Mary feels largely skippable unfortunately since it’s entirely filled with back story. The history contained here fleshes out characters that we previously didn’t know about however though, which lends more detail to the series. The information Maria has learned is sure to affect him in the future as well. The same humor as the previous volumes still pervades Bloody Mary this time around. In the splash pages between chapters Mary and Maria make comments on the content of the manga. Volume Five of Bloody Mary is sure to be interesting, but if you’ve read all of this review you can probably skip Volume Four.
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Manga
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