7th Garden: Volume 8 manga review

7th Garden Graphic Novel Volume 8 cover image

It is year 78 in the Age of A.N. (Annu Nuntius).  This is the time in Exive, one of the seven great continents, in the Holy Braith Kingdom.  In the village of Karna, there is a young man.  His name is Awyn Gardner, and he protects his beautiful mistress, Mariphiel “Marie” Fiacre.  Awyn lovingly tends the beautiful gardens on her estate, but he is about to discover that there is a demon in the garden.  Vyrde (“Marianne”) wants to kill six angels and to dominate the world – with Awyn's help

As 7th Garden, Vol. 8 (Chapters 29 to 32) opens, Awyn and his friends continue to fight to stem the seemingly endless tide of monsters that are spawned when people are bitten by hideous flying “bug-mouths.”  Meanwhile, Vyrde remains in a coma, but other demons plot to keep her plan to destroy all “gnomes” that are living.  What or who are “gnomes?”  They are humans.

[This volume includes bonus art.]

THE LOWDOWN:  The 7th Garden manga is a dark fantasy shonen manga that can be surreal and mind-bending.  It can also be an intense and violent battle manga.

7th Garden Graphic Novel Volume 8 offers both the surreal and the violent.  Creator Mitsu Izumi also offers lots of back story, conspiracies, and intrigue, so much so that readers might need a checklist.  Vol. 8 digs deep into the the story, a narrative that turns into something that resembles The Matrix film series.  Izumi gives readers quite a bit of exposition about virtual reality, the nature of humanity and existence, artificial intelligence, etc.

Tetsuichiro Miyaki's translation and Annette Roman's English adaptation keeps the story grounded with a balance of philosophy and character drama.  7th Garden certainly continues to be different, while being a lot of things in terms of genre, and that makes it an interesting read.

I READS YOU RECOMMENDS:  Fans of shonen dark/action fantasy will want to try the Shonen Jump title, 7th Garden.

B+
7 out of 10