Drops of God Vol. 05 [Paperback]

I can't really get too upset with the US publishers for this one. Apparently it was the authors themselves who asked for the English release to skip ahead several volumes. Apparently all of us "Westerners" can't enjoy reading about Old World wine, so we have to have the authors throw us a bone and focus on New World wines. If you recall at the end of volume 4, there was a note from the US publisher about this skipping ahead. So if you read the last page then you should know you're missing over 100 weeks of manga.

And that being said, I can't give it a low rating because of that. If this had been one more volume released in order, it would be a solid 5 stars. It's kind of like jumping into a great television show on season 4 or 5. Say you started watching Lost in season 4 or 5, you wouldn't really know much of what went on in between, but you would still enjoy it.

That being said, I sincerely hope that this volume will sell well. I have a feeling that if it doesn't do well, there might not be any more coming. Did you notice there is no pre-sale yet for a volume 6? The pre-sale for this volume was listed on Amazon right before volume 4 was released.

So please understand that this was a decision by the odoriferous authors and their Japanese publisher, not the American company trying to translate and bring this over.

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Update: finished it. Was pretty great as expected. Sad that we're not seeing the issues in between, at least at this time. Since the book itself doesn't say #5, I wonder if they might release the issues in between soon. As long as this issue sells well I think they will.

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Update: The series is done in the US. The authors are upset with the low sales and Vertical cannot justify the licensing fees for new editions. Sadly I think it was just not marketed the right way. But it is 100% dead at this time. I have spoken to other people who will be buying the French versions in the meantime. Better brush up on my French!

** IMPORTANT NOTE: This volume skips roughly 5 volumes forward from the end of volume 4. The series builds gradually and is best read in order, but at this point there will be no more volumes translated, so I recommend going ahead and reading this after finishing #1-4. **

** Because of the time jump not only will this review contain no spoilers for New World, I will also avoid taking about anything in this volume that spoils events in the skipped volumes, although I will mention which Apostle they are on for time reference. **

Shizuku's journey through the world of wine and the contest to identify more wines described by his late father than rival Issei continues. Volume 4 ended with the identification of the Second Apostle, and we have now moved forward to the Seventh. Without getting into story details, New World was tough for me to read at first only because the series grows so well from chapter to chapter skipping over 100 was very disorienting and I felt like I was missing out on a lot of nuance. That being said, if you're not worrying too much about what was missed or long running developments and thread the tale in this volume does stand alone fairly well. The detail and care given both to art, wine and character elements is as impressive as always.

Unfortunately the series has essentially been cancelled, as apparently sales for 1-4 haven't been good enough for them to continue publishing the series at this time. The publisher had gone on record before starting the series that they would publish as much as they could, but no matter how the series did they would translate/publish the stories about California wines at some point (assuming, I guess, that's what American readers would be most interesting in). This appears to be a combination of them making good on that promise and hoping that it will increase appeal and generate enough interest and additional sales to enable them to continue publishing the series in the future. Personally I would have preferred one more volume in order, but I can see why they and the original Japanese authors focused on CA when trying to get people in the U.S. excited about the series and it is nice to see them follow through on a promise. I'm hoping things will change and they'll eventually be able to take another chance with this, but for now these five volumes are all we're getting. :(

While jumping so far ahead in a layered, gradually building story is rather frustrating and takes some depth away from this volume, it is none-the-less up to the usual quality standards of the series and presents a engaging back and forth view of Issei and Shizuku's search for the Seventh Apostle.

New World is a worthy addition to Agi's epic and I highly encourage anyone who's interested in the series to pick it up, both to experience the last bit of Drops of God we'll get for a while and because any chance of future releases will depend greatly on the continuing sales of available volumes.

This volume is about the wines from the new world. It has a lot of interesting information about New World wines, however I didn't find the story as appealing as previous volumes. Besides that there's a gap between the previously published volume and this one. This story happens much later from the story in volume 4, so I felt like I was missing information. But it's still a great volume of this interesting saga about wine