No caption jokes, this time.  You have no idea how excited I am about this acquisition.

WHHHHHHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT!!!!!

First off: Not a bootleg.  It’s a genuine copy of the only Ruin Explorers tankoubon volume ever produced (much to my chagrin).  Dust jacket and inserts included.

Next, let’s take another look at that front cover.  You can tell how much work Kunihiko Tanaka put into that.  Just, take a long hard look at practically everything.  And that beautiful watercolor look.  Honestly, off the top of my head, I can only recall two other titles that had beautiful covers like this: Berserk, and Nausicaa of the Valley of Wind.  And I’m not going to exaggerate: Berserk is still undoubtedly the king when it comes to detail.  Doesn’t make this cover any less glorious.

As for the content, it doesn’t really stray too far from the anime.  For the most part, the anime actually goes into more detail with several plot threads.  Not to mention Ihrie is  voiced by the underused Michiko Neya in one of her few leading roles.  The manga really doesn’t do anything to draw you away from the anime.  It’s not a necessity at all.  But for a huge fan like me, it provides plenty to justify my purchase.

Little scenes like this where Miguel proves his badassery by cutting a FREAKING DRAGON in half with one strike (alone and on foot!), for example.  Never happened in the anime.  Though he did cut down living armors and demon puppets.

This is a cute scene after Ihrie split from Fam temporarily.  Ihrie is actually wearing different adventurer’s clothing this time, and it’s pretty damn cute.  I like how wardrobe changes actually occur in the manga.  Fam actually wears shorts most of the time!  Oh, and that second page… I dunno what’s going on, but it looks like some poor adventurer’s rotting corpse.  Ihrie clearly doesn’t like the image.

Part of Prince Lyle’s backstory is that Rugudorull went mad and completely destroyed his kingdom while Lyle was away.  Not only does Rugudorull not look as fucking insane as he does in the anime, he also isn’t as brokenly powerful.  Sure, he can still cancel magic spells without uttering more than a grunt, but he doesn’t solo ruins and teleport as he pleases.  And as this scan shows, it seems Lyle’s fiancee was actually spared from the genocide for reasons “unknown” (for all I know it could be explained right there).  This means the entire fourth episode could have been completely different.  And to be honest, it ought to be.  Ihrie barely used any of her magic in the finale, and the final battle was pretty BS.

The volume ends at roughly the final act of the third (of four) episodes, right before my favorite moment in the entire series!  Pisses me the hell off.  The fact that a second volume tankoubon was never made is even more frustrating.  If I thought it was difficult tracking THIS down, it’s probably even MORE insane a task to track down the specific magazine issues containing the remaining chapters.

At the end of the book are two full color pages.  The first is of Lyle in a classic heroic pose while protecting his fiancee from Rugudorull.  It looks great, but to be honest I don’t like Lyle all that much.  He kinda hijacks the adventure from Fam and Ihrie, and that’s normally not a problem, except Fam and Ihrie never have any NEW adventures…

The second full color page is more interesting (for me).  It’s Miguel and Rasha, the way they were meant to be seen.  Or at least ought to.

Miguel looks like Miguel, but Rasha is vastly different from her usual self.  There’s that unearthy aura she has about her (probably moonlight).  Instead of her usual thick chest armor, she has these thin cups that kinda hug her breasts close.  It’s awesome is what it is.  She has almost final boss-level design.  Those are some huge-ass boots though.

So yeah, that’s my purchase.  I finally have something I’ve been wanting to get my hands on for YEARS.  I’m still pissed off that there isn’t more of it, and I still constantly yearn for another anime.  I think I might have used up all of my prayer power to get me a Phantom of Inferno anime that actually had Cal in it though.

And I still need to get a couple of Kunihiko Tanaka’s artbooks that include Ruin Explorer illustrations.  One of them even has a new chapter in it!  Oh gawd… so this means my quest still isn’t over…