2008-06-20 Loveless Volume 5 - The Sacrifice Chapters

Having been through a bit of philosophical exploration in volume 4, Yun Kouga now picks up the pace, and pushes along the plot of "Loveless". Ritsuka, determined to find out why Seimei was killed, chooses to skip school, and try to sleep all day so he can meet up with the representative of Septimal Moon at night. But the meeting raises further questions, and it's beginning to look as though there was more to Seimei's death than first meets the eye.

This episode of the "Loveless" series winds up largely being about identity, trust and truth, and the intersection of all of these. Identity has always been a strong theme in the "Loveless" storyline, pointed most clearly by the question of whether the "Ritsuka" we see now is the real Ritsuka, or whether he's an imposter, as his mother insists. But now we wind up with questions of trust being thrown into the mix - can Ritsuka trust Soubi (despite the chorus of people saying he shouldn't)? Is Soubi able to trust Ritsuka, despite his own experiences telling him not to? Can we trust the truth of any of the information we're being given as readers, or are we at the mercy of an unreliable narrator?

The storyline continues getting more and more complex, and the questions and issues raised become more and more interesting.