by Hiromu Arakawa, 191 pagesThe final stage of "Father's" carefully laid plans unfolds as his unwilling participants fight to save one another, themselves, and the whole of their world.
With only two volumes left, this one's almost nothing but cover-to-cover action as the story jumps from one concurrent conflict or dilemma to another until they begin to converge beneath Central for the final showdown. But even in the midst of all the action, Arakawa doesn't lose sight of what makes this series so hard not to love in the first place: the characters. Lin! Roy! Riza! Al!...Al!! The drama and characterization blended in with the action just add to the already substantial depth and cohesion of this series, even if this volume is just a few moments in the middle of the chaos. One review I read of this volume complained about the hectic, fragmented nature while another had less of a problem with that and just suggested waiting till the last volume comes out and reading the final three in a spree to smooth it out. I don't have the patience for that. :) With such a long-running, complex, larger-than-life story to tell, and one that yet involves so many individual lives, I don't think the tense, frenetic pacing (or the way it's broken up and pieced together across these final books) can be helped. I trust Arakawa to make every moment count, and as long as I get to see it through to the very end, that works for me.
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