Warning! Spoilers ahead for Ghost Reaper Girl chapter 32.1!
Ghost Reaper Girl recently took advantage of the annoying .1 chapters in manga by teasing fans with an important flashback rather than just taking the easy way out.
After enduring a nearly three-month hiatus due to mangaka Akihisa Saike's health, fans finally got to resume reading Ghost Reaper Girl but were quickly met with a .1 chapter just two installments later. In the manga industry, .1 chapters are usually just a few pages long and occur mainly to address certain publication anomalies. But in many anthologies, these shortened installments replace the normal- and longer-sized chapters, not in addition to them. What's worse, these .1 chapters rarely continue their respective stories. They're usually just a compilation of exclusive colored images, prototypes of the original serialization, other stories by the mangaka, character fact sheets, or, in the best-case scenarios, random silly moments starring the main cast of protagonists. It's not so bad for weekly serializations like most Shonen Jump titles, but for those like Ghost Reaper Girl that are published bi-weekly, readers have to wait a month for a full chapter in these instances.
But in chapter 32.1, Ghost Reaper Girl uses these few pages to give a sneak peek into how the spirit Kai Iod came to meet his master and Lovecraft inspired character Oscar Cthulhu and also eventually assumes the foreboding name the Yog of Destruction. Although it's mostly humorous and fails to disclose how Oscar actually influenced Kai, the .1 chapter shows that both Kai initially refused Oscar's request to become his familiar and that Oscar forcibly summoned him after being spurned by the spirit. It also proves that the form Kai held when he first met the hero Chloe Love was not his original appearance. He looked like a regular guy. When Kai first reverted back into the Yog of Destruction for readers (and Chloe) a few chapters ago, he grew horns, his hair got longer, and he was adorned with more gothic apparel including a long chain wrapped around his neck and chest. So, readers automatically assumed that when Oscar made Kai the Yog of Destruction, Kai lost his human-like appearance and became more devilish. But in chapter 32.1 which transpires before he becomes the Yog of Destruction, Kai still looks demonic. So, readers can automatically assume that he changed his look after he tried to change his life around for the better.
A few chapters ago, Kai and his new friends are dragged into the Lovecraftian sunken city known as R'lyeh and meet Oscar, ostensibly for the first time. But soon Kai reveals that he'd once tried to murder Oscar and thought that his attempt had been successful until now. Since Kai had thought he'd been rid of Oscar, he'd successfully subdued the inner Yog within him and, according to chapter 32.1, changed his appearance, most likely as a means to forget about his tumultuous past and the destruction he caused as Oscar's familiar. But now that Oscar is clearly alive, Kai has no choice but to resume his former role as Oscar's familiar and carry out his dark master's will by becoming the Yog of Destruction - even though he currently serves Chloe Love. Luckily, Chloe being who she is, refuses to let Kai go and allows him to possess her, getting her own Cthulhu upgrade in the process.
Although manga fans would rather have gotten a full chapter rather than a .1 installment, at least mangaka Akihisa Saike utilized the few pages he was given to enrichen the Ghost Reaper Girl world instead of just throwing random images or stories together.