Resolve – Monochrome Factor 3, BLEACH 24

TOKYOPOP claims Monochrome Factor 3 will be released September 9th.  Needless to say, my trip to the bookstore today resulted in me buying one extra, unexpected book.

Akira finally gets a few answers to his questions after Ayu beats up the surrounding kokuchi with a steel pipe – he’s a king, apparently.  Shirogane and Homurabi are both kings of the Shadow World, of the shin.  And a rei is the light world counterpart of a shin, and Akira is from one of their noble lines.  Shirogane hadn’t planned on turning Akira into a shin, but desperate times called for desperate measures.  Anyways, Akira is Shirogane’s counterpart and Ayu joins the party~ Kengo of course gets ignored by Akira and finally loses it.  He storms of with a killer look on his face, beats up some punks, then gets infested by one of Homurabi’s parasite kokuchi.  All the while we hear Akira’s side of the story, how he doesn’t want Kengo to get hurt any more because of him.  Then Kengo and Akira fight, and after Akira wins he finally lets Kengo join the team.

I really don’t know what it is, but I always seem to read through Monochrome Factor really quickly…anyways, it was an okay volume.  Is it just me or is the art getting a bit worse??  Anyways, lots of talk about “resolve,” lots of explaining, moderate amounts of action.

Ichigo and the gang fight off the gillians of Aizen’s army in BLEACH 24.  Ururu goes beserk, and Orihime gets uberly jealous of Rukia.  All leads up to Ichigo going to the Vizards to be trained by them (gasp!) and Chad going to Urahara to be trained by him (uber-gasp!!).  Buy it now and it comes with an entry form for Shonen Jump’s “go to Japan for Jumpfest” contest.  Also in this volume are the lists of the popularity poll winners, and little sketches in-between chapters of Hisagi fantasizing about Matsumoto.  Wow, I never would’ve guessed.