Bryce's Blog

It looks like things are going a bit better.

I finally found the solution to my problems with the app I mentioned in the last post, and submitted the update.

As a reward to myself, I will continue on with reviewing the books I got in print, and three have been covered, leaving only one.

Today, I will be reviewing that book, which is called Judge Volume 5 by Yoshiki Tonogai.

As I have given a series synopsis in an earlier post, I will not go over it again.

With three rounds of the game completed, Hiroyuki’s group of contestants have been whittled down to the final five and things take a turn for the worst after something about the people who organized the game comes to light, involving both sets of contestants.

However, just when they think that they are finally finished, they receive.

I kind of liked this volume.

While it is the penultimate volume, where things should be mostly wrapped up except for the biggest mysteries, there were still some very interesting surprises.

For example, one of the girls that has pretty much been allied with Hiroyuki since the beginning admitted that she voted for Hiroyuki in the last round, which occurred in the previous volume, because she thought that he would rat her out for eating the food supplies.

In my review of the previous volume, I was wondering who had voted for him and why and this was certainly unexpected, because the pasts of the participants were never really explored until now. This is how I wish things had been for much of the course of this series, but seeing as this is series is very close to ending, I guess that it does make some sense that this information was left until now.

In addition to the fact that the one who voted for Hiroyuki had been revealed, it was also kind of surprising to find out that the game was not over yet.

Going by the rules, the moment that Hiroyuki’s group had only four surviving, they should have been released.

Then again, seeing as Doubt ended once the designated wolf was found, that would make things kind of boring.

After all, nothing has been really answered yet, just more questions, like how the people behind it gathered the contents found on the phone that was discovered by Hiroyuki’s group.

The thing that made the twist so surprising though was that both sets of people were not only participating in the same kind of game, they were in the same building and the exact same game.

Throughout much of the story, so far, it seemed like the two groups playing Judge were not going to meet because there was not anything to suggest that the two groups were even in the same building, even up until the final moments of this volume.

On the other hand, such a scenario would make the most sense, because enforcing the rules in two different locations would be quite difficult, if the party responsible is just a small group, which is most likely if the information I found before I reached this point in the series is accurate.

The thing that really piqued my interest though was Takiwaza’s behavior during this final round of Judge.

While he was part of the group that opposed the efforts of Hiroyuki and his group in getting everyone out alive early on, it seems like he may actually be one of the people behind the game, because he was laughing and saying that the tides were turning in his favor.

Of course, it could be a mistaken, but from what I could find out through searches is that only one person was responsible, which I highly doubt to be the case.

Still, there is a chance that Takizawa could have some involvement overall that should be answered in the next volume.

Outside of those things, nothing really seemed to stand out to me.

The fact that things seemed to take an interesting turn and the author did the right thing by not ending the series now made this book pretty enjoyable.

Although I liked the book, there are some issues.

However, due to the fact that I cannot think of anything that really annoyed me, I will have to say that there is nothing worth mentioning, especially since this series was not extended out further like Pandora Hearts was.

Considering that I could not thing of anything that really annoyed me and things are getting interesting at this point, this was definitely worth reading. I recommend this to fans of Yoshiki Tonogai and mystery.
As for everyone else, seeing as this is the penultimate volume, I would not recommend reading this without reading any of the previous volumes.

What are your thoughts on Judge Volume 5? Did you like it or hate it? If you hated it, did you enjoy the other volumes or was it about the same as this? Was there anything that you liked or hated that went unmentioned? Feel free to comment.