Tensions are running higher than ever at the isolated island complex Abigaile where adolescent luga, a hereditary group of people with wolf-like features and qualities, are raised before doing demeaning and back-breaking labor for the Ruberian government. Nina, a girl who grew up looking completely human but developed luga ears and a tail after being bitten by one (the first time this has ever happened), is in more trouble than ever as she rebels against the draconian strictures and harsh punishments that the luga deal with on a daily basis. She’s also in more and more danger of being found out as a human by her classmates and it seems like some already know. Nina wants to help the luga liberate themselves but is there any hope at all?
Beasts of Abigaile wrapped up in Japan shortly after the first volume was released in the US and that caught me by surprise; reading the first volume I felt like Spica Aoki has more story to tell than could fit in just four volumes and that’s exactly the feeling I was left with in this final volume. Aoki has an author’s note in one of the extra pages of this volume which indicates that yes, Beasts of Abigaile had to wrap up more quickly than she expected but I think she handled quite well. I’ve read other manga that ended earlier than expected, and where that scheduling change forced the creators to rush to finish in time — the Weekly Shonen Jump title Psyren is one that comes to mind where it’s low rankings alerted some readers to the fact that the manga wasn’t long for the world and the insanely condensed final chapters most likely tipped off the rest.
Ideally I think that Beasts of Abigaile should have run for five or six volumes; just a bit longer than we got but the pacing in this final volume feels noticeably quicker. There are more plot reveals than there were in any of the previous three individual volumes, and the story just isn’t given quite enough time to breathe. Miraculously, this final volume does manage to hold things together and feel like a satisfying conclusion and that was all I was hoping for.
Speaking of reveals, I believe this is the first time I’ve had the cover of a manga volume I was about to read spoil things for me. One of the many reveals/resolutions in this volume is Nina and most of the side characters learning the truth about the luga’s long-missing king and finding out that bad boy Roy and student council member Gilles are actually his sons (which also makes them a pair of very dissimilar looking half-brothers). I had long suspected that one or the other would end up connected to this mystery, more by applying Occam’s razor to the cast than anything else, so while that revelation didn’t come as a surprise some of the backtracking Aoki then inserts did.
I did not buy into Roy and Gilles’ “we never hated each other as much as you thought, we’ve always been working behind the scenes to make things a little better” spiel and I actually don’t think the condensed ending is to blame for this. I think that Aoki should have threaded aspects of that dynamic in earlier volumes, especially since we the readers already knew that Roy and Gilles weren’t showing their whole selves to Nina and the rest of the luga at school. I had the same reaction to the revelations about Nina’s heritage later on in the volume, it did manage to explain her unusual “looks like a luga but doesn’t have the abilities of one” state, but I do wish Aoki had hinted at this point earlier in the series as well.
Despite these stumbles, overall Beasts of Abigaile was a satisfying, short shojo series that we don’t often get licensed in the US. I was also happy to see that the story does not end on a “it was all a dream” note, in contrast to the rumors I saw floating around after the series’ conclusion in Japan, and actually reading the ending I could see where fans had gotten confused. I’m definitely looking forward to reading Aoki’s next title licensed in English, Kaiju Girl Caramelise by Yen Press, even if the premise sounds very unlike Beasts of Abigaile, and I hope that more fans find and enjoy this series someday.