MANGA REVIEW | "Choujin X" - Volume Seven
Since its beginning, Choujin X has been a treat for the eyes. Its high-octane action is some of the wildest and most creative I’ve seen in a supernatural series in a long time. However, considering the amount of time that Sui Ishida consumes in order to make his series look damn good, a time must come for the wanton violence to be placed in the back burner. Volume Seven of Choujin X is the first breather to come along, with the fights not being the main focus of these four chapters.
Instead, it’s all about getting a plan put together. Tokio, Ely, Azuma, and the rest of the Special Task Force are seeking to take down Zora. Knowing their addictive ways, they decide to cut off the Old Market’s opium supply, and face off against Zora head-on. But there’s a problem: the Special Task Force has no idea where the opium is being grown, meaning they’re going in blindly to battle an entity that could possibly wipe everyone out.
It’s here where we see Tokio use his brains rather than fists, with him suggesting they seek out the opium supply before diving into battle. He suggests one month, but is instead given two weeks. As such, him and two others — Michael and Michelangelo — dive into the Old Market in disguise to seek out the opium supply’s whereabouts. As usual, even in the drug ring market, there’s plenty of supernatural stuff going on.
Saying there’s a lot of exposition in this volume of Choujin X is an understatement. In fact, the info dump involving Zora, Queem, and the Great Choujin War origins is a lot to swallow. At times, it can be hard to digest what is being showcased in these flashbacks, although Ishida’s artwork certainly keeps these old tales interesting. However, besides this exposition, we get a moment to see how Tokio has evolved, and that comes with the way he seeks out the opium supply.
Oddly enough, Tokio’s process plays more like a crime drama than a supernatural action series. The board, the list of allies and suspected characters, and even how everything is labeled is thought through down to even the tiniest of details. Although Azuma is still the smartest out of the main trio, Tokio’s brain has been given a hell of a boost since we first started following him. It’s a cool way to show how a hero evolves not just physically, but also mentally.
That’s not to say that the action is nary to be found in Volume Seven of Choujin X. We get an excellent fight in the beginning involving I.C. Ice, whose powers you can already guess considering his name. Tokio comes out of this looking far better and more focused than any other fight we’ve seen him in, even taking his friends by surprise by how capable he’s become. We also get a quick-yet-cool battle between Tokio and the two Mikes against Choujin drug peddlers, whose appearance brings to mind the sluggy aliens seen in the first volume of Dandadan.
There’s also a new player that enters this manga’s realm: Palma, the zombie-making Choujin. She and the one known as Noh Mask are cooking up a drug that can turn anyone into a Choujin. She just needs to do a little experimentation to find the right candidates, a situation that literally bites her in the…well, not the ass, but she gets some teeth marks planted George A. Romero-style! It leads her to do something drastic, something that sets up what might shape up to be one hell of a great fight!
Although there’s more planning than fighting here, Volume Seven of Choujin X still finds a way to be a very good read. Even though the facts presented will make the average manga reader’s head spin, what’s delivered is something that will surely lead to one epic battle somewhere down the line. Something major and disturbing is about to be unleashed within the Old Market. Once the bells of battle are ready to be rung, we can bet that Choujin X will deliver another badass spectacle that’ll leave us once more in awe!
FINAL GRADE:
Promotional consideration provided by Chantelle Sturt of VIZ Media.
