Wayward Volume II: Ties that bind
By Jim Zub art by Steve Cummings
Ties that Bind starts by focusing on a new character Ohara Emi, who goes to the same high school that the main character Rori Lane attended before she went missing due to her home... Exploding. Emi is in her own words a standard Japanese girl, leading a standard Japanese life and feeling rather trapped by it. She does the same thing every week and knows that her future has been completely mapped out and there's no escape. That is until she sees that missing girl from school floating outside her window, then things get crazy. She finds herself falling into a group made up of Nikaido; a homeless girl who can generate feelings of calm or use anger to create destruction, and Ayane; the crazed girl created by the union of the souls of a group of stray cats (Woah…). This volume does a good job introducing her and fleshing her out, as well as linking her up to the main group. We also get more insight into the character of Ayane. Considering that was one of my complaints with the last volume I do appreciate that. Although Nikaido is still left in the background. Ayane and Nikaido believe themselves the only survivors of their little group and have been waging a vicious guerrilla war against the supernatural creatures of Tokyo through the means of murdering any small group or individual they find. To be fair, every time they've run into supernatural creatures so far, that creature has tried to kill and eat them, so I have a hard time blaming them for their killing spree. However, they lack any idea of what they're fighting and what their enemies want so there's a profound lack of strategy to their actions. So when they run into a group of supernatural creatures who instead of wanting to kill or eat them, offer alliance and suggestions on ways to do real damage to their enemies, the kids jump all over that without asking any real questions. Which is honestly not a smart decision but seems entirely realistic when you realize these kids aren't even old enough to drive in the United States. This is entirely the kind of move that a group of 15-year-olds under stress and living in an abandoned building would do, hell there are adults who have done dumber with less excuse (I really really want to make jokes about cold war and post cold war politics {you are a model of restraint to us all Doc}). So it feels realistic and not forced... Even if I'm facepalming more than a little at the characters here.
Meanwhile, Rori and Tomohiro (a young man who has to eat spirits to survive) aren't dead but find themselves dealing with their own challenges. Such as having to deal with Rori's powers, Rori seems to have a great wellspring of powers that flow from her ability to see and manipulate the strings of fate that bind people and objects together. This lets her do things like find people anywhere, see parts of the future and create new clothes (yeah I'm not sure how that works either [Well she can weave the strings of fate… why not other strings?]). The power also seems to rush right to Rori's head, as she starts making decisions for people she hasn't even met yet. Major ones and while we didn't get a chance for any fallout here, I'm really hoping to see it in future issues. That said, making such questionable decisions is also pretty realistic so I didn't feel like the character was doing something against her nature. Given how young she is and the fact that she is under a lot of pressure I see how she got there. I just hope she gets called out on it.
This volume does a better job of fleshing out our protagonists but our antagonists are still left a rather shady and mysterious group. They appear to be some type of governing body for the supernatural creatures of Japan who regard the teenagers as a threat to them. However, why the kids are a threat to them beyond our bad guys' own actions provoking them into a war stance is incredibly unclear. A good chunk of the group could have likely been brought onside with the proper introduction and mentoring for example. Instead of introducing yourself to a super powerful teenager by beheading her mother in front of her! This is just bad decision making on behalf of Team Bad Guy, a living hostage is always more valuable than a dead family member in these situations. I'm still in the dark as to what is driving this conflict and what the antagonist team wants or even who they really are beside a random collection of Japanese spirits and this leaves the plot a bit flat when you step away from the action. This doesn't feel like a mystery either as the protagonists are making no moves to find any of this out. So I can't consider a story element because nothing is done with this! If for example Emi and Nikaido had done some work to find out why all the supernatural creatures in Tokyo want them dead and who's pulling the strings here, it would have added some depth to the story. That said I do feel this was an improvement over Volume I, just not a huge one. That said I do enjoy the clear research that Mr. Zub puts into Japanese mythology and the appendixes in the back are a treat. So I'm giving Wayward Volume II a C+. It's good, but not that great.
So next week for our last review in March we're going to head back to fantasy novels for a bit and discuss The Tiger's Daughter by K Arsenault Rivera. Afterward, we'll be opening April with the winner of the Patron poll! If you'd like to vote on what books or graphic novels you'd like to see reviewed next month, then please join us at https://www.patreon.com/frigidreads
In the meantime, if you enjoyed this review, please feel free to comment below, or share the link with your friends but above all Keep Reading.
Review of the first volume is here: http://frigidreads.blogspot.com/2017/09/wayward-i-string-theory-by-jim-zub-art.html
Red as always is your editor Dr. Ben Allen
Black is your not so humble reviewer, Garvin Anders.
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