#anyway pardon the long rambling its been a hot minute since i descended into this level of brainrot

[farlynthordens]

personal ranking of all skb volumes + explanations (contains plot spoilers for the whole series)

1, 4

6

8

2, 5

3

7

1st place:

Vol 1: do I even need to explain this? It's the OG, where everything began. It is also generally very good w setting up the story, main cast, and the despicable villain, and I don't think any of us will truly be over the scene of bisco dying and coming back to life thanks to milo's love.

Vol 4: Shishi as a character is awesome and one of my favorites of the series both design and personality wise. I like the benibishi as a whole too, I think their lore and powers are very cool. This vol ranked high for that reason plus the fact it has some absolutely incredible raw moments, particularly shishi vs milo fight, shishi losing control of themself to their new powers, and I mean... the whole twist ending?? Jesus

pawoo gets forcefully yeeted from the story pretty early on, but when we get to see her in the beginning she gets some really sweet character insights and we see how her relationship w milo has changed. she and shishi are also v cute

2nd place

Vol 6: loved this volume primarily for the absolute soul crushing sadness of the ending. the jabi vs bisco fight and jabi’s death rank (in my mind) as 2 of of the most iconic moments in the series. i thought there were a lot of other fun moments/elements of this, like bringing in amli/shishi/chayka for some shenanigans (shishi’s section in particular being sad yet great... #ShishiSweep). but also milo getting drunk and rambling about how gay he is. has a number of parallels to 1 but is still distinct and does its own thing.

It introduces the choushin ability which is frankly SUCH bullshit, like jojo main villain tier universe-breaking bullshit, but after finishing the series and simmering on it i’m just like “yeah ok sure” about it lol. since skb is all about the power of love and believing in your willpower/ideals, i think it’s kind of the natural end you’d reach

ranked a bit lower than the highest tier mainly cuz kurokawa didn’t seem as scary/threatening time around save for the jabi brainwashing. also we get to see pawoo do stuff in this vol after her being basically absent since 3.... but not really since she’s brainwashed for the majority of it. this was kind of sad

3rd place

Vol 8: despite being the longest book and having So much going on every single second that involved nearly every major character of the series, it ultimately concluded very well. I also really liked getting to explore bisco’s feelings re: jabi’s death after it being skipped over in 7, the backstory about marie and jabi, pawoo getting to actually DO THINGS, and even sugar's birth and growth as a character cuz it was handled way better than I'd expected. i think one of the sweetest parts about this vol is how it shows bisco isn’t alone like he thought he’d be once jabi passed. he has his mom back, his new family, and a huge circle of friends to support him.

However, because so much was happening there were a couple of notable big plotholes ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

4th place

The difference between this and 3rd place is almost negligible, it was REALLY hard to separate ranks for the middle.

Vol 2: a lot of really amazing bismilo moments that show how much they mean to each other. the death scene after milo is tortured by kelshinha is so heartbreaking yet lovely. i think this was overall a good sequel plot-wise (kelshinha was a cool villain and the stuff about mantras leads into 3 / the parallels between bismilo and kel/raskeni), and it showed how the boys developed a much more solid bond and bisco realized that being apart hurts them both...... tho there’s also the beginnings of milo’s unhinged behavior lol.

i remember thinking it was really cool that the mantra system seemed pretty well thought out, and there was an actual pattern/meaning behind the chants.

Amli was creepy and overly sexual for a 14 year old (luckily she gets better in later reappearances) so that was a turn off in this vol. also there was no reason to have random ok*ma characters like 😩 we know you can be normal about gay people so why did this happen

Vol 5: weird premise (probably the most weird besides 7) but ended up being pretty fun. it was VERY silly how and why bisco got turned into a child, and honestly this could have been omitted and the book could have been 99% the same, but it did make for a few cute scenes.

the latter half after it’s revealed how the camellia is controlling shishi’s body was neat (and very dark at times. in good ways). i thought it was great having shishi come to terms w their destructive powers and feeling remorse for what they’ve done/not knowing if they deserve to be saved. i also liked the reappearance of kelshinha via amli spirit channeling him; that fight was pretty cool.

also......... the gay hugs.............. very important to me.

5th place

Vol 3: It's been almost a year since I read it, but i remember this being the book I felt most confused by because apollo's powers and the way the "apollo particles" work felt hard to understand. Maybe I'd rank it higher if I reread it in english.

I've also ranted about this plenty before, but bisco/pawoo getting married to trick the enemy was clever in the moment but ended up hindering a lot of their interactions until the end of 7 so that ended up being a huge negative point of this book.

I did like how tirol was a major part of 3, and the backstory about apollo and domino. despite the particle thing being confusing, it was cool learning about how the rust wind happened. this is also the only book that includes any dates, and bitches love compiling info based on dates (i’m bitches)

6th place

Vol 7: I felt this vol was by far the most poorly written, and it pretty much entirely has to do w the author not knowing how to handle pawoo's character. She is pushed aside once again despite the main conflict of this vol centering around her, and we only get to know of her feelings and thoughts via what bisco thinks/assumes rather than from pawoo herself. she’s rendered useless (like in 6) due to turning into a cat and losing the ability to speak.... despite tirol and bisco also turning into cats but being perfectly fine.

also it’s hard for me to pin down why, but i was kinda ambivalent about youkan and geppei? they’re meant to be parallels of bisco/pawoo (tho youkan and geppei each have different elements of both characters) and. hmm. geppei has a pretty interesting backstory where we learn she’s hardcore as fuck, and i do like her haughty personality, and her redemption/running away with youkan at the end is pretty decent. but overall i think both of them kind of felt Off. since bisco/pawoo are already a badly written pair with a lot about them that doesn’t make sense, it ended up translating over to the cats a bit too....

It manages to have a fantastic ending and ultimately comes to what i feel is a good conclusion, but the way we got there was not as smooth as it could have been. There were a number of great moments in 7 (notably the illusion scene/milo's rant, tirol once again getting to be a main character and showing off her mantra abilities), but ultimately it's dragged down by the poor underlying plot.