Manga Review: Tokyo Babylon Vol.4

                                                    Tokyo Babylon Vol.4Review

The first story of this volume is about how Subaru finds a woman driven mad with grief trying to perform a curse known as an inugami, curse such as these are said to claim both the cursed person and the one who performs the curse's lives therefore Subaru tries to stop her from using the inugami. The woman then explains to Subaru why she's performing the curse which is to kill the man who murdered her little girl two years ago but was declared not guilty by reason of insanity therefore the man didn't get punished so she decided to take matters into her own hands and she no longer cares what happens to her. Subaru then attempts to convince the woman not to destroy herself in the pursuit of vengeance by saying her daughter wouldn't have wanted that and then to prove this Subaru summons the little girls spirit only to discover that she is still in pain and wants her mother to punish the bad man. In the end Subaru ends up lying to the woman believing the truth can only hurt her more but towards the end of the chapter Subaru while crying tells Seishiro that he feels guilty about lying to the woman and believes that he took her choice away from her because he believes that since he's not her he couldn't possibly know what is best for her.

The second story of the volume deals with Subaru investigating a religious cult that has members of mostly junior high school and high school students that are part of it. While investigating the cult Subaru meets a girl named Hashimoto who has been bullied violently for quite some time do to her not being outgoing enough and the teacher's as well as the leader of the cult end up placing the blame for her bullying on her because they don't think she's trying hard enough. Subaru becomes friends with Hashimoto by showing real concern for her when he sees that she's hurt and because he doesn't claim to understand her pain when he hasn't experienced what she has. Hashimoto ends up getting stabbed in the eye and the cult leader tells this to Subaru and calls Hashimoto weak in the process which leads Subaru to telling the cult leader that she can't possible be able to save anyone and that she shouldn't judge her people's pain because she hasn't been through what they have been through. In the end Seishiro who had also been investigating the cult for unknown reason comes into the room makes Subaru fall into a deep sleep and kills the cult leader.

Also in this volume there were mentions that Subaru's dream career is to be a zookeeper one day which I've also found that interesting. Seishiro mentions two times to a sleeping Subaru that he'll be winning their bet that Subaru doesn't know anything about, also Seishiro looks rather creepy during these moments as well. I overall loved this volume and I love the theme of no can judge someone else's pain. Please tell me your thoughts on this volume.