Queen's Quality: Volume 8 manga review

Queen's Quality Graphic Novel Volume 8 cover image

He is Kyutaro Horikita, the cleaning expert of Kurokado Private High School.  He finds a maiden sleeping in an old room on campus.  She is transfer student Fumi Nishioka, and like Kyutaro, she has a talent for cleaning.  However, the tall, dark, and handsome Kyutaro is also a “Sweeper,” someone who cleans away negative energy from people's heart.  Fumi becomes his apprentice who will one day awaken as a Queen.  Now, comes the second part of their story.

Queen's Quality, Vol. 8 (Chapters 36 to 40) opens inside Yataro's corpse vault, where we find Kyutaro, Fumi, and Takaya Kitahara, a psychiatrist.  Kyutaro's deceased mother, Toko, is also there... because Yataro is Kyutaro's father.  Ten year ago, the Great Sickness of the Byakko Gate claimed Kyutaro's parents.  Now, Toko is going to tell the full and true story.  Will Kyutaro's love for Fumi change when he hears that truth?

THE LOWDOWN:  The Queen's Quality manga is the sequel to the short-run QQ Sweeper manga, both created by Kyousuke Motomi.  The new series is darker in tone, but also goes deeper into the world of the Sweepers.

Queen's Quality Graphic Novel Volume 8 presents the most shocking secrets about Kyutaro's parents, just as Vol. 7 presented the most shocking secrets about Kyutaro.  In fact, Vol. 8 is a deep dive into the back stories for both QQ Sweeper and Queen's Quality, so regular readers of this narrative will find themselves mesmerized by the dark, scary, and tragic tale this volume tells.

As usual JN Productions (translation) and Ysabet Reinhardt MacFarlane (English adaptation) do an excellent job taking so much dialogue and internal mythology and making it a riveting read in English.  Rina Mapa's lettering is a clever exercise in making this heavy exposition easy to read, while not losing the brutal edginess of the story.  Yes, Queen's Quality is high in quality, and Vol. 8 has a superb cliffhanger ending, which will make you, dear readers, come back for more of that quality.

I READS YOU RECOMMENDS:  Fans of Kyousuke Motomi's QQ Sweeper will want to read the Shojo Beat title, Queen's Quality.

A
9 out of 10