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Sankarea: Undying Love (Volume 8) – Daddy Dearest

Sankarea Volume 8 Cover

Darin struggles with what her father has done to Chihiro and Rea so she tries to help Rea escape. However, Salva is not ready to let her go. Not when she has the answers that he’s been looking for!

Sankarea: Undying Love (Volume 8) – Daddy Dearest

What happened?

Rea has lost a lot of her memories. All she can remember is that she is sick and so is Bub. Therefore, this must be a hospital. As such, she asks Darin when she can leave and when Darin hesitates, she assumes it must be terminal. Even so, she remains positive and even reassures Darin who is struggling with the turn of events. All she wanted to do was to make her father notice her…

Meanwhile, Chihiro managed to escape from the zombies thanks to a small bite on his ear that Rea had given him the night before. That gave him the enhanced strength and speed to be able to escape. He used a severed leg to distract them. However, he had no idea where he was or what he was going to do next. That was when something grabbed his ankle… It was grandpa!

Sankarea Volume 8 Chihiro finds the Rosarie graves

It turned out that Darin had been born from a marriage that was a sham. Neither parent wanted her, but it was what they had to do. Unfortunately, Darin found this out all too soon. Regardless, she was desperate for her father’s attention and she only got it if she assisted with his zombie experiments. So that’s what she did.

She even came with him to the ZoMA headquarters where she met Professor Boyle. Everything changed when the body of a child was donated to the research facility. Salva, Darin’s father revived the child and treated it like the child he never had… He did this over and over again, doting on them until they passed the Turbid phase.

Sankarea Volume 8 Darin walks in on her fathers experiments

Grandpa had come to the island to help Chihiro and to put a stop to the facility once and for all. He revealed that he was much older than he seemed and could no longer feel pain or bleed from the number of times he had been exposed to the poison. He leads Chihiro to a passageway that connects to the main island. They go inside and search for Rea and the remaining zombie formula.

Meanwhile, Darin has decided that she no longer wants to be a part of things and tries to help Rea escape. They run into Rosarie and things get complicated. Salva finds them all and demands they go back. When they refuse, Salva shoots Darin twice. He wants her to take the zombie formula before she dies so that he won’t need Rea. It might be her only chance to get her father’s attention and seriously considers it.

Sankarea Volume 8 Salva shoots Darin

What did you think?

Lots of revelations and half reveals in this volume. The fact that Salva loved zombie girls was not in question, but just how twisted this guy is was… well, we knew he wasn’t right, but now it’s been confirmed. He basically adopts every child that is donated to the research facility and names them Rosarie. Then, when they turn he buries them on the other island along with the others. The kicker is that none of them has tried to eat him, which means they don’t like him…

We also learnt that grandpa did something to Chihiro’s mother, but I was already pretty sure that was the case. It wasn’t revealed exactly what and why, but I’m sure we’ll find that out soon too. I already outlined my thoughts on the topic in the last post. It’s going to be interesting to see if Rea can recover her memories and what will happen to her in the end. I can’t see her staying a zombie forever, so either she dies or they find a way for her to come back.

Sankarea Volume 8 Chihiro saving Rea

What have you learnt?

The anime was full of these little segments that didn’t seem to progress the story much and this volume had one too. At one point, Mero, who is now home alone, met up with the maids from the Sanka residence at the public baths. They invited her to join them and ended up being a cheerleader for Ranko’s tennis tournament. It was sweet, but bizarre and completely out of place in this volume which was probably the darkest one yet despite that.

I’m not a huge fan of such insane tonal shifts. We saw a young Darin walk in on her father cutting up a zombie with a chainsaw and getting splattered with blood. Her father shot her and was planning on bringing her back as a zombie. Then, he seemed to be prepared to shred Darin and grandpa with the owls. All of these are in stark contrast to “Mero goes cheerleading”… I feel like this is why the anime was much more of a slice of life with just a handful of sinister-feeling moments. I wonder if the anime had been made once the manga had concluded whether it would have been quite different.

Sankarea Volume 8 The owls coming for grandpa and Darin

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