The whole system is rigged.
Creative Staff
Story/Art: Haruhisa Nakata
Translation: John Werry
Adaptation: Jason A. Hurly
Touch-up/Lettering: Joanna Estep
What They Say
The Southern Slam, the pinnacle tournament of Mechanical Martial Arts, looms. Despite his fears of a rigged match, Levius has agreed to face “the Emperor.” Oliver E. Kingsley, in a title fight. Meanwhile, in Grade III, Natalia is progressing smoothly through the preliminary rounds, but her next match will be her most challenging yet.
Content: (please note that content portions of a review may contain spoilers):
There is dissonance at the heart of Levius. One which continues to pull the series down.
I still feel that the hyper-detailed, realistic artwork is at odds with the storytelling in this series. An extremely serious speech is derailed by the fact that the President’s family name is Biscotti. BISCOTTI. I know manga and anime often have characters with names which are not names people should have, but this is where we are. The land of absurdism.
The world these characters live in is pure cynicism. Nobody seems to question the horrific violence that they revel in on a daily basis. When Natalia is confronted by a group of mixed-gender kids who proudly proclaim that they’ve decided to join MMA because of her she encourages them. Everyone is meat for the grist. The president proclaims that the war made people more hungry for epic violence, where in reality the horrors of war typically make people turn away from violence. We’re never really given the reason that wars broke out all over. What was the geopolitical situation which led to the warmongering? We still don’t know. How did this world reach this height of dystopian violence?
The president claims it dates back to the bread-and-circus days of whatever their ancient Greece analog was. Yet with the technology available to the fighters, to humanity, they chose violence over progress.
As the crowd is driven into a frenzied blood lust, the fighters hang back and contemplate the situation before them. Levius has just one goal in his fight, to stop Amethyst and their warmongering. Clown Jack appears like a bad penny and weasels his way into the board of directors for MMA. It just catalyzes the fact that the MMA community is on the side of profit above all else. Levius is on the path to change the system, the true hero’s trail. He has to play by their rules to change them, which has real life or death consequences.
Natalia’s goals are a bit more complicated. She continues to attempt to convince everyone that she won’t go up against Balthus. This comes across as another blatantly rigged match-up. Nobody expects her to actually fight him. He is just like his sister, a weapon of mass destruction. Every time he is left unsupervised he kills everyone in the room with him. Natalia shouldn’t have a chance in hell against killing him. While Levi’s team decides to back her at the risk of not being able to be his pit crew, I can’t imagine that there would be enough left of her to save if Balthus has his way.
The worst part is knowing that Jack’s grip on Balthus should be able to be thwarted if A.J. could just talk to him and let him know she’s all right. Yet she was told to stay as far away from the arena as possible. Their world is, after all, on the brink of war. Whatever conflict exists threatens to result in terrorist attacks on the arena and, ironically, the prize fighters are being kept away in case of such an attack.
Natalia is an idiot, and the others aren’t any better allowing her to go through with this obviously rigged fight. The only way to win against this game is not to play.
In Summary
Natalia and Levius are earnest in their desire to change things. Yet they’re a part of the problem. Levius/Est Vol. #04Levius/Est Vol. #04 Trained to fight, trained to kill at the expense of their own lives, their trainers can only stand back and watch them throw their lives away. For glory, for family, for a big middle finger to the industrial war complex which has ruined their lives. I don’t see how Natalia is going to survive. If only the story would take itself more seriously and stop with the elements of narrative dissonance which pull me out of the story.
Content Grade: B
Art Grade: A –
Packaging Grade: N/A (Digital)
Text/Translation Grade: A
Age Rating: Teen Plus
Released By: Viz Media
Release Date: May 19, 2020
MSRP: $12.99 US / $ CAN / £ UK
