Nightschool’s first two volumes introduced us to two groups of characters, the first being teen witch Alex Treveney and the denizens of the night school in which she enrolled to search for her missing sister, Sarah, and the second being a team of young “hunters” who are looking for Alex after she unwittingly injured several of their number. In volume three, the way in which these two groups will combine starts to take shape.
With the help of one of the few people at school who still remembers Sarah—and a nifty, nicely depicted scrying spell—Alex catches a glimpse of her sister’s fate. More significant, however, is a partial explanation for Alex’s occasional bursts of magical violence. The origin of this power ties in with a member of the hunter crew, and suddenly things start to make a lot more sense. I’ll always be happy to get answers to mysteries, but even better is just enough of an answer to feel like satisfying progress has been made while opening up even more potential directions for the story to travel. Chmakova handles this adeptly, and I find I’m even more excited to find out what happens now that I actually have a grip on what’s currently happening.
The one drawback to this series is that, for those following the story in the collected volumes, as opposed to its monthly serialization in Yen Plus, there’s a six-month wait until the next installment. Ideally, one would stockpile all of the volumes until the finale then gobble them up all at once, but when something is this good it’s hard to summon that kind of patience.
Review copy provided by the publisher. Review originally published at Manga Recon.
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