This is one of the most anime books I’ve ever read and I mean that as a complement. One of the main characters is a catboy, there’s a bunch of magical girl (and boy) transformations and they fight against the forces of The Void. It’s great.

However what separates this book from the other overly anime books that I‘ve read is that it’s played entirely straight. The others tend to be more ‘surface anime,’ where they’ll play into all the tropes almost like they’re counting them off a list. But Bloody Spade, like the best of all anime, plays it completely straight. Sure, there’s catboys and magical transformations and all that but they fit into the lore of the world. Ten years ago magic returned to the world, in this one city in particular, changing people and giving them magical abilities. The authorities reacted with suspicion and basically quarantined the city, not allowing anyone with magic out. Some of the magic users turn to crime, some just want to live normal lives and some become heroes. It’s a great and interesting setting.

If there’s one complaint that I have however is that we don’t get to see enough of the lore and the wider world. The wider world is very understandable, as everyone’s trapped in the one city. And there’s enough references to it to satisfy me that it’s out there and built up enough. But the history of the world is something that really needs to be expanded on. One of the main plot points of the book centres around Suites, four special magic people that have appeared in ancient times and of whom, so far, only one has appeared. There’s references to old poems and stories about them and how they have to use this fragmented knowledge of the past to try and work out what’s going on in the present. Which is a great plot device but my problem is that we don’t get to see enough of those pieces of knowledge to know what’s going on ourselves. There’s obviously a nice background to this world and what’s happening in it but I don’t think the reader gets to see enough of it. At one point a being called a Star turns up and I think that was the first time they were mentioned in the whole book. It’s a small quibble but it nagged at me a bit.

That aside this was a very readable book. There’s always something going on, the author’s voice is strong and entertaining and the characters develop well. Also it’s lovely to see the range of representation in this book. There’s lesbians, gays, bisexuals, pansexuals, trans people, non-binary and not one, not two but three people under the asexuality umbrella. That last one was particularly nice to see, as the ace community has enough problems getting people to agree that the A in LGBTQA doesn’t refer to Allies, let alone have main characters in the media.

All in all I loved this book and all I can say is that I want more. More of the world, more of the history, more of the characters and more of the story. Can’t wait for the sequel.