Flum starts her new career as an adventurer in the second volume of Sunao Minakata’s ROLL OVER AND DIE manga adaptation. One of her first tasks is to simply gather herbs; a pretty standard quest for beginners, so she should have a pretty simple time of it. Right?
This volume contains chapters five through to nine.
Gotcha!
Flum Apricot has defeated a werewolf and become an adventurer. Now she can start her new life with Milkit, once she rescues a merchant from some hoodlums, and deals with a violent nun from the Church of Origin, and defeats all the monsters she encounters, and finds the rare and illegal medicinal herbs the merchant needs, and… confronts a horrible beast with a swirling vortex where its face should be! Flum is not about to roll over for anyone, except Milkit!
Flum certainly had her fair share challenges in the first volume of this series, and she has plenty more to overcome in this second one, too. Still, her circumstances since the first time are definitely massively improved compared to where she was before, perhaps mostly due to having Milkit at her side.
At least for a while; when Flum takes on a request from a merchant, Milkit stays behind so she stays out of danger. But Flum isn’t alone in her endeavor; she’s joined by the aforementioned “violent nun”.
The blurb makes it sound like the nun will be another obstacle to overcome, but actually, the young lady named Sara proves to be an invaluable ally.
She makes for quite the enjoyable addition to the cast. She’s the cute, energetic type, who also happens to be able to hold her own when it comes to battle. Being a nun also means she is proficient with healing magic, although that’s more of a bane when considering Flum’s unique circumstances.
The merchant’s request is the main focus of this volume, having Flum and Sara travel to some ruins and discover some very disturbing things; including the most threatening foe Flum has had to face in her life so far. Things get very bloody for almost everyone involved…
Besides Flum’s story, we also occasionally check in on her former party. Flum’s absence seems to be keenly felt by most of them. There’s also some hints that perhaps demons aren’t quite as evil as everyone seems to believe…
Pretty good adaptation of the light novel from Sunao Minakata here. The terror of that beast with the vortex its face should be is definitely captured well in the manga. You know it’s good when kiki, the author of the light novels, says as much in the afterword. In particular, highlighting Sara’s energy, and the creepiness of the spiral ogre – both points which I have agreed on. Nice to know that I have similar thoughts about this manga as kiki does. A worthy adaptation so far, can’t wait to see how Sunao Minakata depicts even further events from ROLL OVER AND DIE.
Rory Muses 