Tougen Anki: Legend of the Cursed Blood Volume 3 Review
Please note that this review contains spoilers for Tougen Anki: Legend of the Cursed Blood Volume 3!
Tougen Anki: Legend of the Cursed Blood is a manga series by Yura Urushibana. It focuses on the life of Shiki Ichinose, a rebellious teen whose Oni bloodline clashes with that of his adopted father who’s a member of the Momotarou Family whose occupation is to hunt Oni. After tragedy strikes and Shiki’s father is murdered by members of the Momotarou Agency, Shiki vows vengeance and is enrolled into Rasetsu Academy where he quickly butts heads with other students as he hones in his skills and tries to control the deadly blood-based abilities that flow within. Yen Press have released the first three volumes of this manga ahead of the 2025 anime adaptation coming in July.
In the previous volume the Rasetsu Academy students took part in a training exercise in a secluded locale, with Shiki being paired with a masked “edge-lord” (as Shiki puts it) Jin Kougasaki whom he immediately clashed with, figuratively and literally, for his bitter and sulky personality, and Homare Byoubugaura, an overly-emotional sort whose abilities unexpectedly grew out of control, a catalyst for Shiki and Jin to put their grudges aside to save her by utilising the skills taught by their teacher Naito. The training exercises were then interrupted by an attack from the Momotarou Agency, with agents Tsubakiri Momomiya and Yomogi Momokusa snuffing out an Oni family and members of the Oni Agency’s Combat Unit in violent fashion – the students only arriving at the nick of time to help any survivors left.
The opening chapter puts focus onto Kyouya Oiranzaka, Captain of the Oni Agency’s Kyoto Support Unit and former classmate to Professor Naito Mudano. He is shown assisting the injured and fighting, as he puts it, on his “battlefield”, trying to keep patients alive and utilising the healing properties of Oni blood to even regenerate a patients’ limbs as the students around him try and lend a hand. I did appreciate here the little detail that these regenerative abilities have their limitations, with the patients’ legs being unable to regenerate due to it potentially causing the body to fail.
Of course, the battle outside and the casualties it’s causing leads to an influx of patients, all whilst Shiki attempts to console a young girl, Mei, whose parents were killed in the attack. However, as the bodies of the deceased are brought into the medical facility Tsubakiri unveils one of his tricks – the ability to manipulate corpses using a special kind of bacteria. Now manipulating the dead isn’t an especially new idea, but it is rather well-executed here and lends well to the stakes being rather high for the third volume of this series.
Naturally the reanimated corpses cause chaos for Kyouya and his medical staff, with the young girls’ parents even coming back to life to try and dispatch her. It’s some very gruesome imagery, and gets paired up with the visage of Aguri, a macabre dog-monkey-pheasant Hybrid monstrosity created by the Momotarou Agency to wreak havoc. With most of the focus being on Tsubakiri’s depravity his partner Yomogi also gets to work as we learn of her ability to use bacteria to create large or small confined spaces, only accessible by her, which is used to trap Mudano and the others attempting to fend off the attack. Now trapped, they must face off with Aguri in a confined space with nowhere to hide, and nowhere to run.
Aguri causes an explosion which incapacitates Mudano and company, allowing Tsubakiri and Yomogi to continue enacting their infiltration. As the students assist in cleaning up the mess and Shiki is entrusted with keeping Mei-Chan safe, “Four-eyes” Jyuji Yusurube utilises Where Art Thou, a blood-based ability that when released enables the detection and location of people. His discovery: Tsubakiri and Yomogi skulking around the underground tunnels and coming into confrontation with Kyouya and Jin. Sensibly, Jin is sent off to lead an evacuation whilst Kyouya dies in an attempt to hold off the gruesome duo as they enact the next step of their plan… or perhaps not as Tsubakiri becomes fascinated with the “Shiki” that keeps being mentioned and wishes to lay hands on our main protagonist.
The volume concludes rather abruptly as after Jin returns to help aid the evacuation, we turn focus to two other students introduced previously in Kuina Sazanami and Rokuro Kiriyama, an odd pairing as Kuina’s main personality trait is that of an extremely obsessive person who desperately wishes to protect others, especially weak men like Rokuro Kiriyama. This borderline insane mentality has earned her the nickname of “The Obsessively Devoted Woman”. This is presented in an oddly comedic and then violent fashion, as Kuina dispatches one of the Hybrid monsters created by Tsubakiri but is then taken down by the others as Rokuro cowers in a closet, concluding the volume on a strange note.
Translation of Tougen Anki Volume 3 was carried out for Yen Press by Ko Ransom, whose work here is generally solid. Like with previous volumes we also get little notes on character designs and some thank-yous from the mangaka.
Overall, volume 3 certainly upped the stakes with a vicious pairing of antagonists who are keeping the main characters on their toes, and any worries of the leads being overpowered have, as of yet, been abated as they take quite the beating here with deaths and major injuries aplenty. Though some of the students remained as mostly background characters during this volume, it was interesting to see some abilities and dynamics showcased, though I remain unsold on Kuina and Rokuro as characters. Shiki as the lead here mostly takes a backseat to his peers, though he does get a nice “I’ll protect you” moment with Mei, and I assume will be facing off against Tsubakiri sooner than later. By the time volume 4 is released, the anime will have premiered and I’m keen to see how this all adapts to animation.
Review copy was supplied by Yen Press.
