Creative Staff
Story/Art: Nobuyuki Anzai
Translation/Adaptation: Lance Caselman
What They Say
Recca and Kurei now face each other in a decisive showdown. Both armed with the incredible power to control flames, they are locked in the final battle of the deadly assassins’ brutal tournament. Worn down from the fight, they both unleash one fantastic final blow that destroys the massive coliseum they battle in. From the rubble the winner will appear…but who will it be?
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
At just about the halfway mark of the manga series, it matches up to about the same place as the anime ended with the confrontation at long last between Recca and Kurei. The two have had their moments of sparring in the past but much of this tournament was geared towards either a final fight between the two over past injustices or the outright destruction of Recca and his friends at the hands of much more powerful adversaries. Suffice to say, Recca and the others have managed to hold their own against some really creative enemies and have come out on top, barely, to face Kurei.
Fighting with Kurei isn’t exactly on the up and up though since he’s not the kind to play fair. Using Kurenai against Recca and with the understanding of who she is now, Recca is at something of a disadvantage at first but as we see through the special training that he’s undergone with Koku and that all comes literally rushing into him while dealing with Kurei this time. Koku’s definitely been one of the more amusing characters to grace the tournament, from how he spent his time teaching Recca to the way he manages to be the only one to actually grope Kagero. Her expression during that incident is priceless and really is one of the few moments in the entire series so far that she’s so truly caught off guard.
Of course, as bad as Kurei has been during a lot of this, the real evil is given center stage in this book as we see his “father” come out from behind the shadows and the rubble to get personally involved in everything. It’s little more than really setting the stage for the, uh, other seventeen volumes still to come but it’s the kind of pure and undiluted evil that’s fun to see characters like Recca go up against. No matter how much he believes he can appeal to Kurei’s good side and try to sway him, Koran Mori is not one of those that can be swayed. His brutality is the kind of loves torture, anguish and being so fully in control of a situation that lets him play like that.
The artwork in this volume is about on par for the last couple of volumes, which is much better than early on in the book. While it may not be up to the standards of a lot of more current books, I really like the rough style he uses and the fluid motions that come from it. Particularly with a volume like this where so much of it is tournament based, you really don’t need a lot of vividly detailed backgrounds to work with. When it moves out of the area material, it does look worse though since the conversational scenes look very bland with just a lot of characters standing around with little to accent it. This volume comes with a few bonus pages that have small gag pages and bits from the staff as well as a showcase of those who fought in the tournament. It’s definitely a solid way to cap off such a long running and intense arc.
Content Grade: B
Art Grade: B
Packaging Grade: B
Text/Translation Grade: B
Age Rating: 13+
Released By: Viz Media
Release Date: January 1st, 2006
MSRP: $9.99
I’ve wanted to give this series a shot for a while now. The story seems really interesting, and lately I’ve really been getting into series with a lot of action. The art style seems really nice too! I think I’ll try to start this series sometime soon! I’ve been reading another action series recently that’s been pretty great so far, Freak-Quency. It’s based in a world where elements from a popular RPG have been transferred into the real world. The MC of this series has to play the game in real life, and risk her life in order to find her brother who went missing. It has a interesting concept, and really beautiful art as well. Plus, the action scenes are also pretty great too. I definitely recommend giving it a shot if you’re looking for a new series to pick up.