Spell of Desire Volume 5 by Tomu Ohmi
It is the final volume of Spell of Desire! What’s happening in the conclusion of this paranormal romance series?
Throughout Spell of Desire Kaoruko has been heading towards a confrontation with her mother, the mysterious Witch Queen. She finds out that her mother sealed herself away as part of a spell to balance out the positive and negative energy that was building up in the world. The Witch Queen emerges, and Kaname confesses that he’s no longer able to serve as the Witch Queen’s knight due to his love for Kaoruko. The Witch Queen promptly wins an award for worst mother of the year when she announces that she’s going to curse her daughter’s boyfriend by taking all of his senses away, followed by taking his memories of Kaoruko away too. Kaname is blinded, and he slowly becomes more and more debilitated.
This curse presents quite the conundrum, and Kaoruko is determined to harness her power for once and for all in order to save Kaname. She’s been slowly inching towards claiming her power, so it was great to see her finally take charge and do something. She’s aided by an elderly black witch who shows up and indulges in a great deal of exposition as the volume wraps up.
Overall, I thought the pacing of this series was a bit off. I enjoyed the world building and character introductions in the first couple volumes a great deal, but the rest of the series felt like it was just marking time until the big witch battle happened in the final volume. Kaoruko’s rise to self-assurance and command of her power felt a bit rushed, but I still appreciate that by the end of the series she was making her own decisions and acting heroically in order to create her own happy ending. While Spell of Desire wasn’t the best example of paranormal romance, Ohmi’s clear visual storytelling made it easy to read.
I see that this manga hasn’t sold as well as Ohmi’s other series to be translated into English, Midnight Secretary. This is a bit of a shame, because I was hoping that Viz would bring out her earlier series Kindan no Koi de Ikou, since there is such a dearth of werewolf manga romance being translated into English. We have all the vampires we need, what about some werewolves for a change? I’d still recommend Spell of Desire and Midnight Secretary to romance manga fans, and I hope more of Ohmi’s work gets translated here.
