The horrific childhood that made Heine the man he is today finally revealed!
Creative Staff
Story & Art: Shirow Miwa
Translation/Adaptation: Katherine Schilling
What They Say
With the city still reeling in the aftermath of the cataclysm, Giovanni makes his move and goes after the director. But the outcome of the confrontation is not at all what he expected. The director himself has deep ties to the underground research facility that Giovanni and Heine were raised in, where they were forced to fight over and over again in Einstürzende’s hellish experiments. Finally the full story emerges of what happened in that killing field so many years ago.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
This story may follow the misadventures of Heine, Badou, Mihai, and Naoto; but Heine is really the central figure. Heine has some kind of genetically engineered super healing factor and has a mysterious connection to the secret faction stirring up trouble in the city. Making Heine both a powerful ally and a dangerous liability.
With the huge explosion set off by Giovanni’s faction and the Dog Soldiers, it leaves the survivors to pick up the pieces and determine their next move. Some of the Hybrid Children want to counterattack the Dog Soldiers, while others want to better determine what is going on. Either move has to start with Heine spilling his guts, literally or figuratively. Considering Heine is plain badass, it is in everyone’s best interest for him to finally reveal his past and not turn things into another fight.
Giovanni didn’t always hate Heine, far from it. Along with other kids, they were genetically engineered to be super soldiers. As just little kids, they were forced to fight for their life every day by a scientist they called Mother. Giovanni was a wimp, Heine was the silent type that worried for his friends, Lily was the strongest but most mentally unstable, and their other friends filled other roles you would expect to see in a group.
The kids knew they were destined to die if they didn’t escape, but they had spent their whole lives inside the lab and didn’t know what they would find outside, or even if their was an outside. They needed some kind of way out, an advantage, or weapon, even knowledge could help them escape. Heine takes it upon himself to garner that advantage to save his friends, even if it meant risking his life. He volunteered for a new experiment that could kill him, but would make him stronger if he survived. Obviously he survived, but things didn’t work out they way he had hoped. The way things went down also gave Giovanni a very understandable reason to hate Heine.
I loved finally getting to see how Heine and Giovanni were connected and how they became what/who they are. Add to that the revealing of the two opposing people pulling the strings in the city and the underworld, and this series has laid the plans for a winner-takes-all struggle with the Hybrid Children unlucky enough to be caught in the middle.
In Summary
This volume busts the plot and character development of this series wide open. But unlike Heine’s ability to heal wounds, there is no covering this wound with a scar now that his companions know that he is a true monster. Despite how his companions and the Hybrid Children may feel after Heine’s revelations, the cool part about this series is the way Heine and Giovanni are two sides of the same coin. They were created together as super killing machines, had to rely on each other as blood brothers to survive, but then chose opposites sides of a war their creators initiated. Add to that the fact their creator chose Heine to be their best but he walked away, leaving Giovanni his unwanted counterpart that chose to stay with their master and the author has created a fun action story. Combine the story with Miwa’s crisp artwork and Viz’s A5 format size, color pages, and clean printing and this series is a fun action adventure worth the ride.
Content Grade: A-
Art Grade: A-
Packaging Grade: A
Text/Translation Grade: B
Readers Rating: [ratings]
Age Rating: 17+
Released By: Viz Media
Release Date: November 8th, 2011
MSRP: $12.99
