Dragon Quest: The Mark of Erdrick – Volume 2 Review

When we last left off The Mark of Erdrick, the main travelling party had been assembled and our two central protagonists in Arus, the descendant of Erdrick and hero of our tale, and Kira, his goofy friend who as it turns out can handle a sword well, even went through a training arc to get stronger. Also in the party is female warrior Lunafrea, Ghiran, Kira’s dad and an experienced fighter in his own right, and a fairy and two older “wisemen” to balance things out. Just like any good RPG, their next destination is a desert town, complete with all the scenery and belly dancers you’d expect (plus a reference to ladies offering a “puff-puff” service, which is a gag from the games that paid reference to early Dragon Ball thanks to their Akira Toriyama connection, so seeing it in a manga was a weird full-circle moment, I guess!). There’s also a church that has a rather helpful mural on the wall that allows one of our wise travellers to impart some exposition on Arus in that the legend says that he, as the hero, will be joined by descendants of the sage, swordsman and fighter who also fought alongside Erdrick, and while the sage is seemingly out (as we met him in the previous volume and he seemingly had no children) the other two should make themselves known as the “Swordlord” and the “Fistlord”.

While Lunafrea senses danger and Ghiran mysteriously disappears, everyone else takes in a show, during which a female fighter called Yao appears on stage and demonstrates amazing skill, even sussing out an assassination attempt on Arus and stopping it. Meanwhile Lunafrea confronts the source of the disturbance she felt earlier and it turns out to be a swordsman called Servein, who has a cursed sword called “Fellsword Neqros” and is able to wield it without the usual negative effects of cursed items, due to hun mastering it. He soon reveals himself to be the Swordlord, and that he came from the secret Swordlord village and killed everyone there after he took hold of the Fellsword, even his own parents and new-born brother (yikes!).

Lunafrea is bested but saved by Ghiran, who had essentially figured out that she had sensed something and followed her, but he too is bested. Luckily the rest of the party soon arrives, including Yao, who reveals (to the shock of nobody) that she’s the Fistlord and that her entire village was wiped out by Servein and his cursed sword. This leads to a big fight that has more than one unexpected twist by the end of the volume. The last chapter then sets up the next story arc, where it seems the “Sagelord” exists after all… again, to the surprise of nobody, prophecies in these games/stories rarely prove to be false!

This is a really fun read, the artwork is consistently good and the plot, while extremely on-point in terms of a traditional RPG story in places, has some fun twists to it. It’s also surprisingly violent, even for a typical shonen manga, which took me by surprise. Maybe it’s just because it has the Dragon Quest IP all over it that’s making the more bloody parts stick out more. There are a few colour pages in the middle of the volume as well, just as an extra bonus. Volume 3 is due out in March.

Overall I recommend Mark of Erdrick to both Dragon Quest fans and fans of your typical shonen manga fare. While Volume 1 was dull in places due to almost immediately going into a training arc, Volume 2 brings out the big guns for its first full-on story arc and is all the better for it.

Read a free extract at the publisher’s website here.

Our review copy from Square Enix Manga was supplied by Turnaround Comics (Turnaround Publisher Services).