Review by Ian Keogh

Volume 3 ended with Mamoru Yamaemori and his allies about to take on a type one Tengu, a flesh-eating monster that conveniently comes in various forms. The constant battle within Mamoru is using the skills that being half-Tengu himself bestows without succumbing completely and joining the enemy.

So far Three Exorcism Siblings hasn’t really sprung into life. The idea is there, but it’s drowned in one battle after another substituting for plot with barely any time to come to know about the characters, and therefore to care about them. In previous volumes Shinta Harekawa has spent as little time as possible on background, but a flashback here proves that Harekawa can wring out emotional turmoil effectively as he examines Kyuma’s past and his motivations. It’s only six pages, monstrously long in avoiding action by Harekawa’s standards, but so well delivered.

Most of this book continues the events around the shrine of Noto begun in the previous book, with the big question hanging over everything being which of two candidates will be revealed as a traitor. Here Harekawa has played a clever game, and is likely to have fooled the entire readership. Well done!

It certainly reconfigures the way the series has been, not entirely, but significantly, and offers new options going forward. Harekawa seems a restless creator, never quite settling. There’s a brief school scene toward the end, following much soul-searching, before he introduces the start of a new quest. Pick up on the final thirty pages alone and you’d think Three Exorcism Siblings offers great variety, which so far it hasn’t. Still, for the first time the signs are good pointing forward.