Her Majesty's Dog, Volume 11

Hyoue has been taken away from Amane and renamed. Worse, he can't even remember her. It's pretty obvious in the eleventh and final volume of "Her Majesty's Dog" that Mick Takeuchi is either gearing up for a spectacularly romantic finale, or a really, really tragic one. Fortunately she manages to include a bit of both in the ending of her fantasy/horror-romance manga, although the last couple chapters feel a tiny bit rushed. A little less introspection, a little more getting Hyoue back. After being attacked by her once-loving koma-oni, Amane loses her voice (and with it her power). Aoi and Takako take care of her for the time being, but aren't sure what to do -- and the koma-oni once known as Hyoue is being tormented by fragmented memories of his past. Determined to make Amane recover, Aoi confronts her about her long-running ears and her biggest personal flaw. Unfortunately even with the return of her voice, Amane is not powerful enough to wrest Hyoue back from her uncle. So a wheelchair-bound Onmyo master named Nadeshiko offers to help Amane realize her full power, in the hopes that she can retake control of her crumbling family and reclaim her beloved koma-oni. But Hyoue is being tormented by the fragments of his memories, and her uncle has a very dark reason for wanting to stop Amane... As a love story, "Her Majesty's Dog Volume 11" is a thoroughly satisfying experience, since it finally deals with all the problems that have haunted Amane and Hyoue throughout the series, and wraps the whole thing up in a tidy bow, emotionally speaking. As a fantasy story... not so much. It feels like Mick Takeuchi had a more epic, in-depth confrontation planned and somehow had to squish it all into about half the space. In particular, the whole matter with the Charter and her uncle's sinister promise to her mother feel under-fleshed out. Fortunately Takeuchi is able to pump enough energy into the story to make these confrontations both painful and richly dangerous, building up to a truly explosive little climax, and some nasty confrontations between Amane and the-guy-who-used-to-be-Hyoue. Fortunately Aoi and Takako make sure that the story doesn't get TOO grim ("This manga's run out of comic relief! We're doomed to become a depressing emo story!" Takako wails), as well as the domineering, wheelchair-bound Nadeshiko. Of all the series, this is where Amane grows the most -- Aoi forces her to confront her own intentional passivity, and her fears of making decisions. As she deals with that, she becomes a much stronger, more assertive person. On the flipside, poor guy-who-used-to-be-Hyoue has retreated from his painful memories of a girl he thinks is unattainable. Even Amane's villainous uncle is fleshed out -- Takeuchi reveals his motivation -- and there's a spark of attraction between Aoi and Takako, although it never really leads anywhere. "Her Majesty's Dog Volume 11" is a solid ending despite being rather rushed, and Mick Takeuchi provides a satisfact

Her Majesty's Dog has been running a good pace, with behind-the-scenes Uncle trying to avenge/service his beloved's final request--slaughter the monster within her daughter. Things don't go smoothly for the characters, but the writer does his best to wrap everything up in a tidy package that leaves a somewhat unpleasant and unsatisfying taste in the reader's mouth. Still, a good happy ending is managed, even if it was contrived.

I loved this series so much that although I'm happy to have a resolution I'm rather sad to see it end. This was the one that started off my (very expensive) obsession with manga when I picked up my very first volume at Borders after contemplating the wonderful cover art and interesting sounding storyline for a month (further details can be found in my review of volume 1). As a series ending I will say that I found it satisfying. Although I never really cared for the family politics plot, I enjoyed the resolution and thought that the ending twist about Amane was very interesting. I found it amusing that even the manga-ka felt her storyline was getting too serious and made efforts to lighten the mood using Takako and Aoi. I kind of would have liked to have seen those two get together, but ultimately they were only side characters without any definitive ending of their own. I did find it odd to see the changes in the way the manga-ka drew the artwork. In some cases the differences seemed very dramatic. I think you can even see it if you compare the cover art between the first and eleventh volumes without ever even having to open them. Overall I found this to be an intriguing supernatural series and although I rather feel the first volumes were stronger than the later ones I think as a whole it is a pretty wonderful story. Highly recommended to teens and up.