Book 673: Fence Vol. 3 (Fence #3) – C.S. Pacat, Johanna the Mad, and Joana Lafuente

I wasn’t obsessively looking forward to this since I had issues with my timing of reading the first two volumes, but when I went to grab Go for it, Nakamura! from the library and saw this was available, I grabbed it too.

This picks up right where Fence, Vol. 2 left off and there’s no recap or anything as these were originally being released periodically and read as periodic comics. Like I said in the last review about the timing between Fence, Vol. 1 and Volume 2. I should’ve just waited and read them back-to-back. It would’ve been a more rewarding experience and I doubt I would’ve been quite so disappointed in this one.

I think this once again reiterated that comics just aren’t the genre for me, even when collected. I enjoyed the story and we at least got closure on the main story line, but of course there was a new cliffhanger at the end of the series which I’m assuming leads into the projected graphic novel. I will say the characters seem much more developed, especially the main characters, after these three issues. Nicholas and Seiji have both matured and fingers crossed they’ll actually turn into friends and not just teammates. The rest of the characters were just background noise.

Recommendation: Worth reading if you read the first two and really like fencing and or LGBT+ portrayal in sport stories. Other than that I’d probably say skip these and wait for the graphic novel.