 | | ▪ | RELEASED BY: | | DIGITAL MANGA PUBLISHING | | | ▪ | AUTHOR / ART: | | REIKO YOSHIHARA / KATSUMI MICHIHARA | | | ▪ | FORMAT: | | WESTERN / B&W | | | ▪ | PAGES: | | 170 | | | ▪ | RATING: | | M | | | ▪ | RELEASE DATE: | | 03/11/2009 | | | ▪ | REVIEW DATE: | | 07/09/2009 | | | ▪ | REVIEWED BY: | | HOLLY ELLINGWOOD |
Riki has made a deal with the devil thanks to Kirie handing over Riki’s friend Guy to Iason. Those two weeks of abduction has put a strain on their relationship but Riki desperately wants to settle things with Guy before he has to return to Iason’s ruthless care…forever. Fate intervenes as time runs out in the latest and one of the more tense and horrific volumes of Ai No Kusabi. Kirie’s treachery continues when the Darkmen, the merciless Midas police force, do the unthinkable and enter the Ceres slums looking for him. They believe the quickest way to get to Kirie is through Bison, through the comrades Riki is about to say goodbye to forever. But they bite off more than they can chew when they also pick up and torture Riki. The extent of his relationship, the layers of the web of Iason’s trap seem endless as Riki descends into an all new hell. He manages a brief reunion with Guy, but the moment is short lived when the traitor Kirie is found by Riki and is desperate for his help. Repulsed, enraged, Riki at last snaps. Now it is a question of how the wheel of fate will turn now that Kirie, the most wanted person in the entire colony, is in Riki’s hands. The latest novel of this gripping and often unnerving exploration of human motivation touches on the lengths of degradation and abominations that humanity is willing to commit whether for survival, for greed, and sometimes just for kicks. The terror of the Darkmen’s brutality is dwarfed by the flashback segments that reveal what Kirie was up to with Manon and the horrific discovery they make that causes all of the forces at large to be on the lookout for him. Now Kirie screams in his sleep because in his dreams he remembers what he saw. It is worth a scream or three at least. Due to the storytelling vacillating between Bison and Riki and then to Kirie throughout the book, there is at times a disjointed feel that mirrors the unhinged state emotionally and psychologically that the characters are approaching, and some of them are already in that state. More so than previously, the latest novel goes into a great deal of narrative depth in order to explain the world and structure that the characters live in. It is necessary explanatory details but it does slow down the pace. However the last couple of chapters are some of the more riveting in the entire series so far.
IN SUMMARY:
Brutality is unleashed and horrors revealed in the latest stunning volume of Ai no Kusabi. |
