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Better late than never, right? I’ve recently finished reading the first volume of the Resident Evil manga, Marhawa Desire, written and drawn by Naoki Serizawa. Standing as a prequel to the events of Resident Evil 6, we get a look at new characters in a brand new outbreak scenario, with some familiar faces joining the action. So, is it good?
The C-Virus is the root of the problem in this new outbreak. The story starts with a nicely laid out scene filled with mystery over the identity of a cloaked figure and their objective in the book’s main setting, Marhawa High School. Said figure has seemingly let loose the C-Virus in the school, and we see the result of that in an isolated case with a lone zombie in one of the classrooms.
The book follows Professor Doug Wright and his nephew/student Ricky. They attend another school entirely, but it isn’t long before Doug receives a call beckoning him to head over to Marhawa High, where the majority of the book takes place. Marhawa High’s headmaster has some history with Doug, which fuels her reasoning for having him be the one to investigate the outbreak that has occurred. As aforementioned, the outbreak starts out pretty lowkey, but as we all know with this type of horror, all it takes is one zombie to start a chain reaction of widespread death!
Longtime fans will be happy to know that Chris Redfield also figures into this story, as he and his BSAA team are in another part of the world during the school’s outbreak. Like the headmaster of the school, Chris also shares a mutual interest in Doug’s assistance. And their search for the professor will eventually unite both parties, which I’m pretty sure happens in the next volume. The mystery behind our cloaked villain is certainly intriguing. I’m eager to see if they end up having a connection with past characters in the series.
The book has some nice twists peppered throughout, strung together by some strong moments of suspense and action. The BSAA operatives have the best action scenes, with them going up against a whole rogues gallery of BOWs. It makes for a memorable sequence that makes me wish it was playable. And while the surprises in the story are neat, they aren’t actually all that unpredictable. Only one stood out to me, which raises a question I’m really curious to see answered in future volumes. But I won’t spoil that here!
Despite its story beats being predictable, this book was still a thrilling read that left me wanting more when I reached the final page. The best part is that the next volume is already available! It has been for a while, I was just late to the party. So stay tuned for my review of volume 2 soon!
