The Executioner and Her Way of Life Vol.1

I'll confess that I picked up the manga having written the synopsis for MVM's upcoming anime release (see the news here). Normally another isekai wouldn't tempt me, but this one sounded different. 

The opening chapter is terrific, starting as most isekai do with an introvert summoned to the new world from his native Japan, only to be thrown out by the King who summoned him for not having any notable gifts. Lost in his new surroundings, he meets Menou, who takes him in and leads him to a church to see if the young man shows any hidden talents. To his astonishment he discovers he has the power to "null" anything out of existence, and immediately plans his grand journey as a powerful adventurer. Alas he has only moments before Menou plants a dagger in his head, and his story comes to a close. 

As opening chapters go, it's a wonderful subversion of expectations. Everything is played as though the young man, whose name we don't even learn, gets established in his new world, given a backstory and then, as soon as he appeared, gets dispatched.  

The book follows Menou, outwardly a priestess but actually an executioner sanctioned by the church, she hunts the "Lost Ones" that are transported to her world from Japan. With the world having suffered four major calamities due to overpowered interdimensional travelers, the church has ordained that those who are brought to this world and exhibit powers must be disposed of in order to keep the people safe. Menou is joined by her trainee, Momo (who has a very annoying vocal tick that has almost every sentence ending with the word drawn out into a whine...) Still, she's useful too, not only well trained in combat but also a skilled seamstress - having discovered that a girl was transported alongside the boy, Menou must disguise herself as a maid and extract this second traveler from the castle.

Here we meet Akari Tokitou, another high school student who craves a fateful meeting in her life. Upon meeting Menou she immediately trusts her and agrees to flee the castle. Menou of course is there to kill her, but upon dealing the fateful blow from behind, witnesses the girl's time-based powers that simply bring her back to life. Perhaps Menou has met the first Lost One that simply can't be killed.

There's a lot of setup in this first volume, but introductions and world-building are handled deftly. The pace is brisk and the action pretty evenly distributed throughout the book, making an easy page-turner. Ryo Mitsuya's art is sharp and attractive, but I will say that a few page layouts left me scratching my head. For example, during a heist on a train, Menou is threatened by gunmen. One in particular is holding her at gunpoint while the other passengers are taken away. When she makes her move, she takes out someone with black hair - we only the see the top of their head and it really isn't very clear, to the point where it looks like she just attacked Akari. However, we see her tie two men up, and it appears that her victim was a second gunman that we hadn't seen for four pages (and even then, at a distance and away from Menou). I assumed there was only one assailant and everyone else had left with the passengers, but I had to scan a few pages back and forth to figure out just what had actually happened.

A few oddly directed panels aside, it's mostly clean and full of lovely deep tone work to give the feeling of depth to every page. The story kept me riveted from start to finish, Menou's understandable dedication to her job still heartbreaking when you consider that she basically murders innocent children before they've done anything wrong. At one point she describes a recurring dream where she's surrounded by her victims at a Japanese school, every recurrence accompanied by a new face. The dilemma of committing such violent acts but retaining a conscience makes Menou an interesting character, nicely balanced by her trainee reveling in combat and carnage.

I hope the series manages to maintain this moral dimension as the story continues. There are clearly political undertones in the story as the summoning of Lost Ones by a rogue kingdom suggests deeper schisms between continents and perhaps more weaponised Lost Ones who will make an appearance down the line. Will Menou continue to lead Akari to her death (the church has a special chamber to kill overpowered Lost Ones that can't be dispatched by traditional methods) or grow to like and protect the girl who shows nothing but trust and kindness. There are also dialogue hints that Akari may have developed her time powers in the future and that they are affecting events as we see them, but as always only time will tell.