[Shinji103]

Volume 11 was just released the other day, and I must say, it's the most moving piece of work I've seen or read in a long while.

Spoiler for Volume 11:

Going in, you know it's going to be focused on Anju, with an Anju cover, Anju and her classmates in a color-picture "future view" of her junior high school days, and one of Anju's classmates on the table of contents page. But the "future view" pic totally threw me off as to how this all turns out.

Anju's awakening as a vampire has come, and with it comes a whole slew of issues, the biggest ones being how she won't be able to spend as much time with her sister, and the effect her increasing distance from her classmates has on them, especially on Suguru (Anju's classmate with glasses who has a crush on her).

Suguru's mother wants him to transfer to a special junior high after he gets out of grade school, but he's reluctant because he'll be seperated from all his friends at school. This is how Anju finds out that her "taste" is loneliness, and the ironic thing is that she's also afraid of the lonliness she'll go through when she awakens, since she won't be able to be with Karin as much. She ends up biting Suguru, and then uses her bats to put in her classmates' and teacher's minds that she transfered to a faraway school.

On their way home, Karin congratulates Anju on her awakening, even though she knows that they won't be able to stay together, which causes Anju to run away to Ren and cry. And as Ren himself puts it, the troublesome part is that Karin had no ill intentions in her congratulations. The next morning, Karin wakes up to make breakfast and lunch for her and Anju, but now even Anju isn't there to greet her in the morning.

This summary may not have the dramatic effect of the manga volume itself, but I'm not embarrased to admit that I was nearly moved to tears over Karin and Anju's dilemna over Anju's awakening. And it looks like this event possibly even ripples to Karin's relationship with Kenta, as the next volume preview shows Karin pushing Kenta away and running away.

And I am oh so happy that Elda was back asleep again before the volume started. I don't want to even think about how much worse it would have been for Karin and Anju if she had gotten involved in this.