Monday, July 29, 2024

Bring Out the Claws

No Longer Allowed in Another World volume 3 is devoted to the catgirl Princess Matilda. Or as, the regular cast knew her, Tama. While Tama's locked away in her castle, forced to play her father's understanding of a princess, Sensei questions one of the former servants as to the backstory there.

Matilda felt stifled by her father's strict notions of proper gender roles, being told to go sit in her room and read while her brother trained as a fighter. When her brother and mother died in a rockslide, Matilda tried to take her brother's place as the warrior who would protect the kingdom after their father. But that notion didn't gain any purchase with her father, either.

All of which comes to a head rather dramatically when one of the 7 Fallen Angels, the outworlders who killed the Dark Lord and have decided to rule the world themselves, shows up. Determined to assist her father in battle and told she has no place there, Tama rushes in, almost dies, and costs her father his arm.

At which point, with the outworlder, whose power is to gain the abilities of those he eats, having declared himself the ruler of the land, Sensei decides to get involved. Of course, he's less interested in confronting the outworlder than satisfying his curiosity, though I suspect we're meant to read it as him hiding his concern for others beneath his search for inspiration. Either way, you figure you know how this will go after the previous volume. Kaibara even goes to the trouble of relating his story before coming to this world, so now Sensei can use his gift and banish him.

That's a solid burn, not gonna lie. Kaibara was a spoiled rich kid that grew bored with having everything money could buy and decided he wanted to eat people. At least Arcade's boredom lead to him building a massive murder-themed amusement park. That shows a little creativity, artistic flair, engineering knowhow. Kaibara can't even bother to put on pants, walking around in a robe and speedo like it's Dipshit Bro Summer.

While writer Hiroshi Nota avoids having the battle settled by the main character using his special ability, and even has Kaibara make a joke of the notion that normally he'd lose to Tama now she's resolved her inner conflict and unlocked her power, he can't resist instead having it settled by the hostile anti-hero who seems destined to experience a face turn. Tama's ultimate attack does a lot of damage, but not enough, and Kaibara transforms into a fairly disturbing form (although it reminds me a little of Evil Queen Bloated Pulsating Sweaty Malformed Slug-for-a-Butt from Earthworm Jim), only to have the Dark Lord's daughter show up and annihilate the guy.

There's a nice 3-panel sequence of Kaibara's head flying, and what he seems as he it rolls. Probably could have done just three panels of his perspective and then the big shot of his head gazing up at Waldelia, but it's still an effective page.

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