Plagued by long and short hiatuses, Ghost Reaper Girl finally returns with three characters loosely based on Cthulhu monsters engaging in battle.
Warning! Spoilers ahead for Ghost Reaper Girl chapter 33!
After some additional delays, three Ghost Reaper Girl characters loosely based on H.P. Lovecraft‘s monsters from the Cthulhu mythos are finally engaging in an all-out melee battle.
Due to mangaka Akissa Saiké’s poor health, the series originally went on a nearly three monthlong hiatus beginning in early November at one of the worst possible times. Chloe Love’s first ghost friend and familiar Kai Iod who’d essentially changed her life for the better had just transformed into the Lovecraftian Yog of Destruction and then betrayed all of mankind by opening the gates of hell. When Ghost Reaper Girl finally resumed in January after such an intense and long cliffhanger, Chloe not only forgave Kai and allowed him to possess her (assuming a new form in the process), but she declared war on her own organization Arkham Bullet to protect him.
But the wait was far from over. Ghost Reaper Girl prolonged the conflict even further by releasing two .1 chapters throughout February. Even though one of these installments was able to tease manga fans with a short flashback of Kai Iod, the main storyline wouldn’t continue until chapter 33 finally dropped in March. In this latest chapter, the fight that has been looming between Night-gaunt, Shoggoth, Noel, and the Yog of Destruction-possessed Chloe Love has finally begun – and three of them are loosely based on themes and characters from H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos.
The newest of these characters – Night-gaunt – is a member of the East 11 that consists of some of the strongest ghosts in Arkham Bullet. But he’s nothing like the Night-gaunts from Cthulhu as they were flying creatures with bat-like wings, whale-like skin, and no face (and therefore silent). Ghost Reaper Girl‘s highly voluble Night-gaunt doesn’t have any of these things, though he does control the wind, which alludes to the possibility that he might be able to fly. And even though he has a horn, it isn’t like the one Lovecraft’s creatures have since those curve inward and his is straight. What’s amusing, however, is that Kai tells Chloe that the East 11 member shouldn’t be as strong as he is since most Night-gaunts are lesser Old Ones and should be weak, like they are in Cthulhu. This is probably Akissa’s way of proving to readers that he’s aware of the discrepancies in his correlations even though Night-gaunts aren’t Old Ones in Cthulhu. In this way, Ghost Reaper Girl‘s Night-gaunt is similar to Shoggoth and the Yog of Destruction, as these other characters are also very loosely based on the mythos of H.P. Lovecraft, along with a few others like Nyarlathotep.
This isn’t to say that Ghost Reaper Girl doesn’t create truer renditions of H.P. Lovecraft‘s Cthulhu creatures. For the eponymous monster does make a brief appearance himself in earlier chapters. Regardless, it’s an exciting moment in the manga as this is the most important battle involving the highest number of Lovecraftian characters thus far. Hopefully, there will be more in the near future – and with fewer breaks in the manga – so long as it doesn’t come at the expense of Akissa Saiké’s health, which takes priority.
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