Chapters 40-49
I'm a fan of training arcs in manga. I don't care how long it is or even if its short but a good amount of training that's shown to us can make the audience believe the characters have gotten stronger. A training arc nor any indication of the characters getting stronger really occurred here. So Kurei invites Recca and his crew to the Urabuto Satsujin, an underground fighting tournament where anything goes. Literal anything as people are putting up the lives of other people for the chance to compete. Recca has to either accept or be killed with Yanagi as the wager for them to compete, meaning, if the team loses, or dies, Yanagi goes back to Kurei.
Okay, so we have this big tournament of the nastiest people trying to win money, bragging rights and so on while we have just a small 4 man team of children in team Hokage. Their first match is against team Ku who have a reputation of being the strongest hit man team in the Northeast. Tokiya easily wins the first match cause all he had to do was read his opponent's movement. Domon is next and he's the weakest so he pushed around until eventually losing in a Draw. Fuko beats the perv by just combining two Madogus which she could have done from the start. Then we are left with Recca fighting Saicho but the manga ends on that note.
Volume 5 is a fairly decent volume. We get to see what exactly this tournament will be like as well as how Kurei and his henchmen will be reintroduced back into the story. But there are some problems with this volume. Its lacks any depth. The best way to describe this volume is "fake deep". The reason its fake deep is because there are moments like Recca getting furious at the lackeys for hurting his mom but there is no build upon it besides her randomly showing up at his house the next day and helping his dad make fireworks. We need to see more tot heir relationship besides them knowing they are family. Also the training arc that I mentioned earlier. Are we just supposed to believe these characters are stronger when Tokiya is easily beating his opponents still? Domon did not get stronger at all. Fuuko is clearly showing signs of mastering her Madoku as well as others but besides the battle savvy in her, she didn't really get stronger. She got smarter, but not stronger.
Recca claimed two dragons but we don't know how, he just did. Also there was no hype for the tournament itself. We didn't get to see the characters train, spend time with their powers or see growth in them as characters before the tournament leading us to believe that they clearly, are not ready. By creating a since of danger with the looks, abilities and the backgrounds of other characters, we are to believe that they will be stepping in to danger but because of that and a lack of character development for the main character, it seems that there is no way they should be here to begin with.
Like I said, it was a decent volume but no substance to it. I will leave you with this question though. If Kagero was your mother of 400 years ago and she sprung all of this upon you, would you believe her, disregard her or disregard her and try to hit?
I'm a fan of training arcs in manga. I don't care how long it is or even if its short but a good amount of training that's shown to us can make the audience believe the characters have gotten stronger. A training arc nor any indication of the characters getting stronger really occurred here. So Kurei invites Recca and his crew to the Urabuto Satsujin, an underground fighting tournament where anything goes. Literal anything as people are putting up the lives of other people for the chance to compete. Recca has to either accept or be killed with Yanagi as the wager for them to compete, meaning, if the team loses, or dies, Yanagi goes back to Kurei.
 |
| I thought this was pretty funny |
Okay, so we have this big tournament of the nastiest people trying to win money, bragging rights and so on while we have just a small 4 man team of children in team Hokage. Their first match is against team Ku who have a reputation of being the strongest hit man team in the Northeast. Tokiya easily wins the first match cause all he had to do was read his opponent's movement. Domon is next and he's the weakest so he pushed around until eventually losing in a Draw. Fuko beats the perv by just combining two Madogus which she could have done from the start. Then we are left with Recca fighting Saicho but the manga ends on that note.
 |
| Thought this was funny as well |
Volume 5 is a fairly decent volume. We get to see what exactly this tournament will be like as well as how Kurei and his henchmen will be reintroduced back into the story. But there are some problems with this volume. Its lacks any depth. The best way to describe this volume is "fake deep". The reason its fake deep is because there are moments like Recca getting furious at the lackeys for hurting his mom but there is no build upon it besides her randomly showing up at his house the next day and helping his dad make fireworks. We need to see more tot heir relationship besides them knowing they are family. Also the training arc that I mentioned earlier. Are we just supposed to believe these characters are stronger when Tokiya is easily beating his opponents still? Domon did not get stronger at all. Fuuko is clearly showing signs of mastering her Madoku as well as others but besides the battle savvy in her, she didn't really get stronger. She got smarter, but not stronger.
Recca claimed two dragons but we don't know how, he just did. Also there was no hype for the tournament itself. We didn't get to see the characters train, spend time with their powers or see growth in them as characters before the tournament leading us to believe that they clearly, are not ready. By creating a since of danger with the looks, abilities and the backgrounds of other characters, we are to believe that they will be stepping in to danger but because of that and a lack of character development for the main character, it seems that there is no way they should be here to begin with.
Like I said, it was a decent volume but no substance to it. I will leave you with this question though. If Kagero was your mother of 400 years ago and she sprung all of this upon you, would you believe her, disregard her or disregard her and try to hit?
