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Title:  Dragon Eye Vol 8

Author: Kairi Fujiyama

Publisher: Del Rey

ISBN: 9780345506733

May Contain Spoilers

The VIUS tournament continues, and when Kazuma realizes that both Leila and Yukimura are missing, he starts getting a little worried.  He knows that Yukimura would never be late for his match unless something or someone was preventing him from being there.  When Kazuma tries to go looking for his squad members, he is immediately reprimanded by Sakuraba.  The stakes at this tournament are high, and if Kazuma blows it off,  Mikuni is going to be humiliated.  If only the two of them knew that the Dracules were planning on destroying the city, the tournament wouldn’t matter anymore.  If everyone is dead, what difference does it make who wins?

Most of this volume focuses on the exhibition tournament, with sporadic jumps to Leila and Yukimura.  They have been captured by Dracules, but thankfully for them, the Dracule guarding over them is more than slightly inept.  While Yukimura has taken a beating, Leila is uninjured, though she awakens to an unnecessary wardrobe change.  I don’t understand why creators feel the need to have helpless female protagonists end up in their underwear, but I realize that I am not the target market for this particular manga series.  Still, it adds nothing to the plot, though it is good to note that Leila coordinated her undergarments before her capture.  It’s always reassuring to know that characters plan ahead for any possibility.

Anyhoo, Leila and Yukimura don’t feature prominently this time around, and instead, the tournament takes center stage.  Again, I wonder why everyone hates little Kazuma so much.  Everyone just wants to beat the crap out of him, and so far, he hasn’t done anything to deserve this.  Sure, he had a rough patch  in his past, and the incident still looms up to haunt him, but people have got to learn to live and let live.  Holding a grudge isn’t good for anyone, as several contestants discover.  Holding a grudge leads to public humiliation and many, many bruises.  Broken bones, too.  Some people never learn.

While this volume piles on the action, it doesn’t advance the plot at all.  We know those nasty Dracules are lurking outside the city, waiting to be let in to cause mayhem and death.  However, the tournament matches is where Kairi Fujiyama placed most creative efforts.  Now, while the fighting is entertaining, and it’s fun to see everyone’s special moves, it does get tedious, especially knowing that there are deadlier confrontations waiting in the wings.  Despite the frantic pace of the battles, it seems that events in Dragon Eye are only dragging on.  I hope that there is a shift in events, and that the tournament plays second fiddle to the Dracule invasion.  I would much rather see the VIUS members use some of their overabundant energy to beat the snot out of the real monsters, instead of gunning for Kazuma.

While Dragon Eye has fallen into the shounen battle of the chapter trap, there are still enough compelling elements to prompt me to follow the series.  I just wish the tournament story arc would wrap up with a little more haste.

Grade:  B-

Review copy provided by Del Rey